Patrick’s Day – Film Review
Director: Terry McMahon
Starring: Kerry Fox, Moe Dunford, Philip Jackson and Catherine Walker
Release Date: Out Now
Patrick’s Day is the second film written and directed by Terry McMahon. It’s about a young man with mental health issues named Patrick (Moe Dunford) who becomes intimate with a flight attendant. This triggers his mother into trying to separate them, with the help of a dysfunctional cop.
Patrick’s Day, first shown at the SXSW film festival, is a drama about intimacy and mental health. It focuses on how people deal with certain issues and how they overcome them. On March 17th, everyone in Ireland celebrates St. Patrick’s day, while Patrick himself celebrates his birthday.He is taken to Dublin every year to celebrate with his mother, Maura (Kerry Fox), when all of a sudden they lose each other during the festival celebrations.
Patrick, who goes in search of his mother at the hotel, stumbles across a woman named Karen (Catherine Walker). They form an intimate bond and ultimately end up spending the night together. Meanwhile, while searching for him, Patrick’s mother befriends a very odd cop named John (Philip Jackson), who has aspirations of becoming a stand up comedian.
Struggling after his very first sexual experience, Patrick predictably falls in love with Karen. This causes problems for Maura, who has to deal with Patrick trying to leave the hospital unsupervised in order to see her, his mind constantly preoccupied with her. The lengths she goes to in order to try and stop their is reunion is where the hook of the film lies. Aside from enlisting the aid of the previously mentioned comedi-guard, she even goes so far as to try and convince him that Karen was a figment of his imagination.
Every character present here has issues of some variety, not just Patrick who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and spends his time in a hospital with other mental health patients. Shortly after we meet Karen, we learn that she is suicidal and doesn’t want to go on. Maura is an obsessive mother, fixated on controlling all aspects of Patrick’s life. John, meanwhile, is a rather unorthodox lawman, whose only method of coping in a world full of danger and violence is relentless comedy. In particular, he has quite a penchant for one liners. Compared to his co-stars, Patrick comes across as almost normal.
Moe Dunford is sensational as Patrick. He manages to exhibit an number of different and complex emotions and does so believably. I was very pleased with his performance; as well as his solitary performance, he has excellent chemistry with the rest of the cast, particularly Kerry Fox and Catherine Walker.
Patrick’s Day is a generally well written film, but suffers a lull during the 2nd act and has an oddly rushed ending that left me puzzled. Having said that, I was quite satisfied with the overall result.
One of my favourite aspects of the film is the way music is utilized throughout. At one point, a song is abruptly cut short as soon as Patrick enters the hospital, which was initially quite jarring. It is later explained, casually, that sometimes Patrick hears songs in his head when he’s happy and like to disillusion himself into believing he’s in a film. This is an oddly meta segment that doesn’t add much to the film, but does give it a certain quirky personality. This is not just another depressing drama about mental illness, it seems to say.
Instead, it is a rather beautiful story about the difficulty in marrying mental illness with intimacy. Patrick’s Day is a strong film that stands proudly alongside many of its brothers and sisters of modern Irish cinema. It is a solid example of how far the Irish film industry has come in the past decade or two, and how this trend is likely to continue.
Score: 3/5
Written by Graeme Redmond
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