Aubrey MalonePatrick’s Day (15a)
When this film began I thought it was going to be filled with the kind of pretentious cleverosity that was so prevalent in the early Neil Jordan.
What, for instance, are the chances of a woman ‘cancelling’ a suicide attempt in the Gresham Hotel because the mother of a 26-year-old schizophrenic who’s just lost his virginity to her is rapping on her door?
Or the chances of the same woman telling a policeman her son has gone missing and, instead of a search being mounted, he proceeds to tell her a string of politically incorrect jokes? And then announce his fantasy of being a stand-up comedian?
So far so bad, but when it settles down it becomes a fascinating insight into the manner in which schizophrenics are still being poorly diagnosed in this strange world of ours, even with modernity’s quote unquote ‘enlightened’ psychiatric expertise.
Patrick (the aforementioned schizophrenic) later falls in love with Karen (Catherine Walker), an air hostess with a drink problem. (We’re not told why she has a drink problem, or indeed anything about her air hostessing.) But his over-protective mother Maura (Kerry Fox) decides that the relationship will ruin whatever chance he has of living any kind of a normal life.
She believes the best way to terminate the relationship is for Karen to ‘humiliate’ Patrick and then abandon him.
Such amateur psychoanalysis proves detrimental. It sets the film up for a kind of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest finale which it thankfully avoids, at least for the most part.
Moe Dunford gives a bravura performance as Patrick, his moods alternating between bouts of Brando-like brooding and some equally impressive scenes of childish excitement. The relationship between himself and Laura had a bit too much of the ‘babes in the woods’ about it for my liking, and an attempt by writer/director Terry McMahon to suggest a similarly unlikely romance developing between John and Maura seemed equally facile.
The main problem with the film is that the main quartet of characters are all, in their way, on the edge, and this is perhaps three too many. There are also too many convoluted backstories squeezed in for comfort. But when it’s good it’s very good.
A scene depicting electro-convulsive therapy will disturb most viewers but it’s the plank upon which McMahon’s message regarding mistreatment revolves so it had to be in.
If you accept the film on its own terms it has a hypnotic fascination about it which is buttressed by Damien Dempsey’s powerful vocals on the soundtrack. A cast that seem to really believe in what they’re doing, even if those of us scratching our heads in the audience might not.