The Snapper

Roddy's gone and done it again--The film is exquisite. You will laugh 'till a lung bursts. Don't take you eyes or ears off the screen, every second counts!

Roddy Doyle can present Irish family life at its best and most painful and The Snapper will leave you gasping for more. Colm Meaney is as always amazing but pay attention to Ruth McCabe and Tina Kellegher, quick dry wit from the former and outlandish comments from the latter. Very very clever!

The Snapper is directed by Stephen Frears and adapted to screenplay by Roddy Doyle from his own novel of the same name. It stars Colm Meaney, Tina Kellegher, Ruth McCabe, Fionnula Murphy and Brendan Gleeson.

The Snapper is the middle part of what became known as Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy (The Commitments and The Van either side of it). The Snapper of the title is a baby expected by young Sharon Curley (Kellegher) when she unexpectedly falls pregnant during a drunken liaison. Refusing to name who the father is, the strain on the large Curley family reaches breaking point, especially when the neighbourhood and so called friends begin to point and judge with malice. Can the Curley family pull through? It's going to need some humour and no end of Irish family grit to do so.

Affectionate realism draped in comedy, The Snapper in Frears' hands unfolds as an original take on the stress caused to a family by an unplanned pregnancy. Initially the film's structure feels bumpy, the blending of family drama with uproariously scripted comedy, but once you settle into it you realise that this is exactly how the Curley family are feeling, how they cope. As we get deeper into the picture, and there is much human depth here, peripheral characters come alive and the relationship between Sharon and her father Des (Meaney) really holds the attention whilst simultaneously tickling the requisite emotional threads.

Impeccably performed (Meaney, Kellegher and McCabe are terrific) and with a great script brought vividly to life by Frears, The Snapper is very much a recommended bowl of comedy drama Irish Stew. 8/10

Because one needn't think TWICE to figure out this is not just a movie. It's 90 minutes of pure Irish humor, and good publicity for Dublin. If you like Colm Meaney, settle down and watch 'The Snapper'. But this is such a good movie you can go on inventing reasons to see it. The Snapper deserves respect and cheers for it's one-liners, the sweet Irish accent and the location. Dublin rulesssssss! Roddy Doyle's books must be hilarious, I don't know but the movies sure are FANTASTIC!!!

Give it 9/10!

This film is a delightful romp about a large, boisterous Dublin family which gets turned upside down when the eldest daughter unexpectedly becomes pregnant. Strong-willed Sharon Curley (Tina Gellegher) refuses to discuss who got her "up the pole," but is equally adamant about not wanting to get an abortion. She keeps her head held high as friends needle her, neighbors whisper, and younger brothers and sisters ask wide-eyed questions. Colm Meaney gives a standout performance as Sharon's dad, expertly revealing a gamut of emotions, from rage to sorrow to curiosity about the birth process to exhilaration at the prospect of becoming a granddad. Ruth McCabe plays the soft- spoken but strong-as-an-ox Irish mom to perfection. While it gets a tad slow towards the end, this film is a great rental if you want a light-hearted yet heart-warming celebration of family-- in all its gory and splendor.

Sweet, touching but also bawdy tale of a working-class Irish family's reaction to their unmarried daughter's pregnancy. The father character is especially interesting. He takes great pride in his family, with all its imperfections. He tenderly cares for his daughter through her ordeal and holds his head high despite the neighbors' petty gossip. A real "family values" film depicting people of modest means trying to stick together.