South
Director: Gerard Walsh
Talent: Darragh O’Toole, Emily Lanney, Joe Rooney, Andie McCaffrey Byrne
Released: 25th November
2016 has been a good year for Irish film, particularly comedies and musicals. As such, South, a new musical comedy from writer/director Gerard Walsh faces fierce box office competition as well as comparisons with its lauded contemporaries. But where Walsh’s previous film, A Day Like Today was a rich, lived-in character study with a lot to recommend it, South is another story altogether.
We follow Tom (O’Toole), an anxiety-ridden busker searching for his estranged mother after the sudden death of his father. The father-son relationship is central to the picture, established through a number of touching flashbacks. These moments are the film’s best as they feel the most fleshed-out, feeling far less scattershot than the film’s other plot points. The rest of South isn’t given the same breathing space. It is a hurried and haphazard picture, with some heart but ultimately falls short of its contemporaries or Mr. Walsh’s previous effort.
Words – Luke Maxwell
