An Irish Angel

The acclaimed dramedy "An Irish Angel" is ostensibly a tried but true tale of the misfit high school lass who longs to ditch her dreary existence, skip this one-horse hamlet and make it in the big city, except shes been knocked up.

But as smartly written and directed by Danny Patrick the sum of these singularly familiar parts combine to take us to a place well beyond where we typically go with such fare. Taking the helm Patrick weaves an uncommonly engaging story. Deftly mixing healthy hits of both laughter and tears, he guides us on a journey every bit as eccentric as it is stirring.

Not every movie has to have an enduring message. Still, "An Irish Angel" struck me with this one. The more we may try to distance ourselves from that which has come to define us, the more we are drawn ever nearer to it.

And to appreciate the hell out of it.

I thought this movie was promising, premise wise. It was refreshing in the sense that it didn't feel like your average Independent Artsy Movie; it felt more or less like a movie with something to say. Which is charming actually, the cinematography is beautiful I loved it.

To me this movie over delivered on some points, and undelivered in others. Like I said I liked the directing style, I liked how unconventional the characters looked. Mostly in films; teenagers are being physically portrayed as beauty pageant contestants or extremely good looking cheer leaders etc.. but over here they looked more realistic and believable as teenagers. I loved the way this movie represented the family unit, in that it wasn't too good to be true but wasn't too unreal either. Millions of Irish People probably grew up in such families which seems more relatable to the viewer.

I have to focus on the ways in which this film fell short for me at least. The plot was very cliche, the same as every other coming of age movie. Teen finds herself pregnant, teen fights with parent to gain her independence, parent resist teen's independence and then teen starts rebelling out of frustration and so on.

The plot was quite the cookie-cutter. It was predictable and we have seen it many times. The only difference is the setting & the characters really. I felt like the idea of the family going through "financial difficulties" was just thrown in for good measures. I kinda wished they threw that out of the plot all together, it didn't seem to actually affect the plot in anyway other than dramatic effect.

So yeah, overall pretty good film but I felt it lacked on originality and it wasn't as "deep" as I had hoped it would be.

An Irish Angel is a lot like the time in which it takes place. The film has a lot of note to say, but you get the sense that it has a good time just being there. By 2017, The Good Friday Agreement was in the rear-view mirror, as were much of the struggles of the previous decades. It was almost like people were sick and tired of caring about trauma.

Our film shows us the trials and tribulations of Aine just looking to navigate the world of a teenage girl. There are plenty of familiar faces in this cast with Jaime Winstone and Julian Glover, but nobody really outshines the leads Niamh James and Todd Bell. The film is paced in a manner that lets us know about the characters. The most memorable scenes in the film are more painful than funny with Aine's Nightmares.

Danny Patrick's films the action is from a completely neutral vantage point. There is nothing at all pretentious or preachy about any of the subject matter. The film ramps up the humor of other Teen fare, but shadows that with the tragic desperation that modern teenagers face, this film is worth taking a look at.

One of the things this film does exceptionally well is give us a snapshot of the experiences Aine 'Niamh James' has, while still filling each moment with so much meaning and emotion. This is not a film about a teenager actively going through the world, it is about being in your 30's and looking back at your teenage youth. An Irish Angel does not rest on any single experience for very long and this is because when we remember our youth, we don't remember everything, and we don't remember all the sides to the story, we just remember how the door slammed and everything went silent or how we used to stare longingly at the dream house a few streets away, wishing it were ours. The criticism that this film touches on too much and discusses too little, is a misconception that this is a play by play of a young woman forced into being an adult. This is how life is remembered, in moments, slivers, glances. More over, Danny Patrick creates a female lead character that is at once self-conscious and determined. She does not wilt or waver in her goals even despite the mistakes she's made. Aine is a new female lead that does not ask "what will I do now?" when something goes wrong. She simply keeps going, until she arrives.

Aine (Niamh James) is in her senior year in a Catholic school in Portush, Northern Ireland and desperately wants to go travel the world, but she's just found out she's pregnant. This causes conflict with her widowed mother Margaret (Amanda Doherty).

Aine is someone who can be inconsiderate, selfish, insecure, good-hearted, ambitious beyond her abilities, naïve, fun, and able to redeem herself. In other words, she is a confused teenager on the cusp of adulthood and Niamh James plays the part superbly.

It has sharp directing by Danny Patrick who also wrote the screenplay. There are also engaging sidebar stories including other characters that add greatly to the main mother-daughter conflict: the despair of losing a job later in life; financial burdens; periodic depression; the inner-conflict of being young and Catholic; the futility of social climbing; the belief that "there" is better than "here".

The coming-of-age genre is so common that it's difficult to raise the bar. "An Irish Angel" at least meets the standard and then some though it could have been more. In fairness, the two lead performances do stand out especially that of Amanda Doherty. She shows so much push-pull with her daughter while trying to come to grips that her daughter has made the same mistake she did in getting pregnant young. She also has the brilliant ability to let the emotions build gradually and then attempt (as we do in real life) to resist them until the attempt is futile. No wonder Amanda Doherty is winning so many awards and award nominations. While she gives a rich performance, I believe the film would have been greater if she had been given even more screen time.