Life’s A Breeze is a
return to homegrown cinema for Lance Daly (Last Days in Dublin, The
Halo Effect and Kisses) following the disappointing release of The
Good Doctor. Life’s A Breeze is much safer territory, it being a
family comedy with Pat Shortt, but there is something of more interest lurking
under the film’s surface.
Fionnula Flanagan (Ulysses,
Some Mother’s Son, Man About Dog, The Guard) plays the
matriarch to a large family who are all feeling the toll of the economic
crisis. Her useless son Colm (Shortt – This Is My Father, The Closer
You Get, Saltwater, Wild About Harry, Mapmaker, Man
About Dog, Inside I’m Dancing, Garage, The Guard)
lives with her and begrudgingly signs on every week. When her children
unexpectedly tidy up her house for her, a large sum of money is unknowingly
dumped and the family must come together to track it down.
As a yarn, the film is slightly
inept, not as funny as it should be and overlong. It is more interesting, and
successful, as a comment on the Celtic Tiger generation. In fact, a lot of what
doesn’t add up initially starts to make sense when one thinks of it as a
satire. For example, it is clear that the family is short of money, but an
extended sequence in which they show Nan (Flanagan) around the house, pointing out
all of the expensive changes they have made, showing that they are spending it
anyway. This doesn’t add up and is very distracting, until later on when one
begins to pick up on the fact that the film is possibly more than just a silly
comedy. Hence, it is a comment on people spending money they don’t have – a
scenario the film will revisit a few more times – and, hence, by extension, a
comment on Ireland’s, and the world’s, economic collapse.
The film is mainly about the
developing relationship between Nan (Flanagan) and her grandmother Emma (Kelly
Thornton, her debut), their connection due, as is often suggested by inference,
to the fact that one predates and the other comes after the Celtic Tiger. All
of Nan’s children have been effected by the Celtic Tiger, scarred by a brief
period of wealth, they are constantly spending money that they don’t have and,
at the prospect of a large sum of money coming their way, are frequently seen
arguing over their share of their inheritance. Nan is clearly contemptuous of
their generation and, as one of the final shots makes explicit, does not fit in
with her own family. Emma, on the other hand, represents a hope for Ireland,
since she is young, uncorrupted and used to scrimping and saving. A final image
of Emma, almost like in The Searchers, leaving the house and watching
the traffic jam outside is eloquent of possibility for her as much as it is the
mediocrity of everyday existence chasing after money.
Daly, who also wrote the script,
layers in a variety of reflections of modern-day post-crash Ireland, which
comment on and frequently deflate the light comedy of the story. Life’s A
Breeze is a deceptively light film, revealing much darker truths though not
always as well as it might. At one point, Emma finds herself wandering around a
large abandoned building in which homeless people are living in horrible
conditions. The pacing is slow, taking in every detail but it is also tense, as
if Emma is going to be attacked at any minute. It is a moving sequence and an
important one – for a film that mocks the Celtic Tiger generation should be
open to be the real damage that has been done. And yet, it is really quite
damaging to the film overall. As valid as this sequence is, it is unclear
whether it is supposed to be sad and threatening and, much worse, when the
happy, light entertainment returns, it seems distractingly hollow and forced.
Daly may well be commenting on the emotional volte-face that we are all capable
of doing after seeing some form of economic hardship on our streets – a reading
that makes the film a lot more interesting and worth a second viewing – but it
feels more like a political comment stymied by the film’s need to tell a
satisfying yarn.
For every environmental-scare
scene – the destruction of the land to make huge landfills – there is a tacky
scene in which Nan and Emma have a laugh, whilst on a landfill. It is entirely
possible that Life’s A Breeze is a thoroughly ironic and accusatory film
disguised as a Pat Shortt comedy (in keeping then with Garage and The Guard, in which Shortt is cast as either a dramatic or comedic comment on
his otherwise rather grating persona) but this subversion is jarring rather
than revealing.
Life’s A Breeze may
prove to be more interesting on a second viewing, when one may expect and look
out for the subversions that may or may not be present. It is a difficult film
to judge since its deficiencies, as a light comedy may instead be a means of
expressing the absurdity of life and the corruption of the Celtic Tiger.
However, by turning a film’s flaws into virtues, one wonders if one isn’t
making more of the film than is really there. Life’s A Breeze is
certainly interesting but it feels like a stretch to consider its fluctuations
between light comedy and grim Loachian drama an important comment on our own
ability to ignore the problems of people around us and, by extension, a comment
on a film’s ability to distract us from these problems. Life’s A Breeze is
either rather poor or it is a surprisingly self-aware and important film – one
of those strange gems in which the truth, one suspects, lies somewhere between design
and dumb luck.
