Film Review: “Rosie”, 2018
Rosie (dir. Paddy Breathnach, 2018)
Irish films can often feel constrained or obsessed by their own context. The need to distinguish Ireland from other English-speaking countries, and the desire to assert our own distinctive way of speaking and acting, can put a grey cloud over a narrative, pushing more interesting qualities into the shade. “Rosie” avoids this pitfall, not least because of the skill of its screenwriter, Roddy Doyle. The film follows a mother as she attempts to find housing for her family, and in its simple, natural style, and logical plot development, it is a solid depiction of a topic often mentioned in the news: family homelessness caused by the imbalanced operations of a rigged, inequitable property market. Despite this fruitful ground for drama, however, the tension of the story is sometimes lost, and while certain sequences echo Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You” or “I, Daniel Blake”, the film does not reach the dramatic heights of those works.
The story begins with Rosie, a mother of four, sitting in her car, calling hotels in search of emergency accommodation, while her husband works as a kitchen hand in a posh restaurant. Their family has been evicted from their house by the landlord, who plans to sell the property. Other films would waste time on this inciting incident, but here the focus remains on the more important question of what Rosie and her family will do next. She manages to secure a single night’s stay in a hotel, but the next day other difficulties arise, and obtaining even emergency shelter becomes a prohibitive task. Smaller problems stack upon one another, pushing Rosie to her limit.
A large portion of the runtime is comprised of Rosie making phone calls from the car: but Sarah Greene’s skilful performance in the central role, and the claustrophobic urgency generated by the continual needs of her four children, infuse the imagery with tension. “Rosie” is shot mostly in a straightforward documentary style, with many long close-up scenes that put the actors’ performances in the foreground and establish a strong connection between the viewer and these characters. There are occasional moments of visual flair, for instance in certain long tracking shots, though these are not always successful. At a key stage when the narrative tension has reached a high point and Rosie is on the cusp of a breakdown, the camera follows her on a long walk all the way across a field. It is a shot that intends to place the viewer inside her perspective, in a moment of great suspense for her as a mother, yet it does not really succeed, because it kills the pace that had been generated up to that point.
There is a similar difficulty with the plotline: the first half of the film builds up problems and threats very well, as Rosie’s struggle to find accommodation is exacerbated by her teenager daughter’s acting out. Unlike “Sorry We Missed You”, however, where rising crises compound and reach an unbearable crescendo, “Rosie” loses its urgency at the midpoint, and though the family’s situation continues to become more desperate, the dramatic construction of their predicament loses force. Arguably, this is because the script becomes increasingly internal and literary, especially in the final half-hour, when the camera increasingly lingers on Rosie in soulful close-ups, implying her internal agonies; but without action and image to externalise her emotions, the viewer is left to imagine rather than experience.
Nonetheless, the film still creates a strong impression, not least through its key performances. Sarah Green’s portrayal of the eponymous character is restrained and delicate, as she reveals both her character’s desperation, and her need to conceal that desperation under an appearance of self-respect and control. Excessive theatricality could easily turn this story into a soap-opera, but Greene avoids this through her unemphatic approach. Her children, however, are the real stars of the show. Apart from delivering some trademark Roddy Doyle dialogue, their most important contribution to the film is their physical reactions to the unfolding action: they generate a comedic undercurrent that balances out the escalating catastrophes of the storyline. Indeed, it is that balance of tone which ensures this film does not become a tawdry bit of melodrama. Real-life family problems are always underscored by moments of humour and absurdity, and by keeping this in mind, both Doyle and director Paddy Breathnach ensure that the film remains convincing and enjoyable.
Overall, this is a solid naturalistic depiction of the personal fallout of Ireland’s inequitable property market. It pushes the viewer to ask how and why a family with four young children can find themselves homeless almost overnight. The impact is somewhat undermined by flaws in the screenplay’s construction, and a lack of visual intensity in the direction. This kind of film has the potential to be blistering, disorientating, and unforgettable. As it is, “Rosie” puts a face to the abstract concept of the homelessness crisis, and demonstrates how even in a city as small as Dublin, mutually incompatible worlds exist alongside one another. It is discouraging to consider that, three years after this film’s release, little has changed or improved; yet this becomes less surprising when placed in historical context: the landlord class has been wreaking havoc on the Irish economy for hundreds of years. “Rosie” simply represents the latest consequence of this ongoing travesty.
