how could I go wrong?

The Boys and Girl from County Clare

Starring Colm Meaney, Bernard Hill, Andrea Corr, Philip Barantini, Charlotte Bradley, Shaun Evans, Patrick Bergin
Directed by John Irvin
Written by Nicholas Adams

Granville 7 Cinemas
Fri-Sun Tue-Thu: 1:50 3:50 6:30 9:00

"an irresistible Irish comedy, lovingly told, beautifully acted and graced with the perfect balance of chuckles and bittersweet heartache"

Set in 1966, the story pits rival brothers who fancy themselves expert traditional musicians and who both lead bands vying in Ireland's biggest annual competition. Both are well aware of each other's ambition. But they haven't spoken or seen each other in years.

The eldest, John Joe (Bernard Hill), stayed on the family farm. Another brother, Jimmy (Colm Meaney), moved to Liverpool years ago and is a successful businessman there. The mid-'60s, Liverpudlian connection invites numerous jokes about the Fab Foursome of that time and locale. During rehearsal, when one player gets a bit adventurous stylistically, a tyrannical John Joe exhorts him to "leave jazz to the Beatles."

That slightly precious air of a bygone time is wonderfully exploited, especially since the lilting music played throughout the movie has been making such a comeback and needs no apology. The brothers don't so much seem dated to us as prescient. Moreover, there's a funny/sad soap opera underlying the competition. The real rivalry between the brothers isn't musical but romantic.
Both vied for the same girl (Charlotte Bradley). After he won and impregnated her, Jimmy abandoned her, so that John Joe, the loser, wound up helping her raise Jimmy's daughter.

That daughter, Anne (Andrea Corr, a lead singer-fiddler with the actual Irish band the Corrs), is now grown and old enough for romantic yearnings of her own. And where does she find them? In Jimmy's rival band, of course, falling for Teddy (Shaun Evans), a boyishly handsome lad who can't quite measure up to the cynical woman-chasing his band buddies encourage.

There is a kind of surface ease to the storytelling and sentiment. This is not the stuff of more grim and multi-layered work by such contemporary Irish playwrights as Martin McDonaugh and Conor McPherson. But director John Irvin manages a nice balance of bathos and blarney, tossing in a surprise twist (involving a third brother) that shrewdly underscores the mix of love and conflict innate in almost every family, Irish or otherwise. And the relationships touched on are complex: Jimmy is the biological father Anne never saw, John Joe her surrogate dad.

The performers act (and play their instruments) as a true ensemble. Meaney, the more familiar among them, is exquisitely crusty and strong-willed, to be sure, but Hill, Corr, Evans and Bradley are superb as well pieces in an amusing and sentimental puzzle that, like the upcoming holiday, you don't have to be Irish to enjoy.

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Review by Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune Arts Critic