Friday, 28 October 2011
Focusfeatures: Benedict Cumberbatch | ACTOR OF THE YEAR
His poise, stature and very proper voice give Benedict Cumberbatch an aristocratic quality that makes him a natural for costume dramas, and it’s no surprise that he made his first major impact on the big screen in a period piece, playing William Pitt the Younger in AMAZING GRACE, the 2006 biopic of British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The same year he appeared opposite James McAvoy in STARTER FOR 10 (based on a novel by One Day’s David Nicholls), and in 2007 reteamed with McAvoy on ATONEMENT. More period roles arrived, with Cumberbatch playing William Carey, a courtier of Henry VIII in THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (2008), and Charles Darwin’s friend Joseph Hooker in CREATION (2009). With a bit TV show and a lead in the TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, it’s no wonder thatBritish GQ crowned him “Actor of the Year,” noting these achievements, as well as his upcoming turn in Steven Spielberg’s WARHORSE and in Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBITT, are “all proof (whatever your powers of deduction) that Cumberbatch’s huge star is surely rising.”
His poise, stature and very proper voice give Benedict Cumberbatch an aristocratic quality that makes him a natural for costume dramas, and it’s no surprise that he made his first major impact on the big screen in a period piece, playing William Pitt the Younger in AMAZING GRACE, the 2006 biopic of British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The same year he appeared opposite James McAvoy in STARTER FOR 10 (based on a novel by One Day’s David Nicholls), and in 2007 reteamed with McAvoy on ATONEMENT. More period roles arrived, with Cumberbatch playing William Carey, a courtier of Henry VIII in THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (2008), and Charles Darwin’s friend Joseph Hooker in CREATION (2009). With a bit TV show and a lead in the TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, it’s no wonder thatBritish GQ crowned him “Actor of the Year,” noting these achievements, as well as his upcoming turn in Steven Spielberg’s WARHORSE and in Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBITT, are “all proof (whatever your powers of deduction) that Cumberbatch’s huge star is surely rising.”
focusfeatures site
Benedict Cumberbatch | Small-Screen Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch | Early Stages London-born Benedict Cumberbatch is the son of actors Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (who’s real last name is Cumberbatch). From an early age, Cumberbatch was drawn to the theatre and to the spotlight. He remembers in an interview with London Theater being “a very bossy Joseph in the Nativity play at primary school. Apparently I pushed Mary offstage because she was taking too long.” Hoping to provide him with alternatives to the stage, his parents sent him to the elite boarding school Harrows, with hopes he might pursue the law. “I got the idea of becoming a lawyer by watching Rumpole of the Bailey,” he told USA Today. But real-life lawyers proved less romantic than his fictional models. “I started meeting people they throw at you to put you off — these worn, vampiric-looking creatures who hadn’t seen daylight for a long time. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m thinking of becoming a lawyer because it’s more sensible?’” At all-male Harrow, he had to settle for playing female roles (he was Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rosalind in As You Like It), yet it did little to dissuade him. After studying at Manchester University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he found an agent and quickly established himself as a gifted stage performer.
Benedict Cumberbatch was so in demand as a stage actor that he could easily have made a career of playing Shakespeare, Ibsen and Eugene O’Neill in the West End; however, that was not to be his fate. In 2004, he was chosen to play Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s small-screen biopic of the physics genius, Hawking, and gave a brilliant performance that won him a Best Actor nomination at the BAFTA Awards. A number of other TV roles followed (including playing opposite fellow TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY star Tom Hardy in Stuart: A Life Backwards in 2007) before he found even greater success playing another brilliant British brain, Sherlock Holmes, in Sherlock, the smash hit BBC series that transposes Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries to the present day. “There’s a great charge you get from playing him, because of the volume of words in your head and the speed of thought – you really have to make your connections incredibly fast,” Cumberbatch told The Guardian about playing Holmes. “He is one step ahead of the audience, and of anyone around him with normal intellect.”
Benedict Cumberbatch was so in demand as a stage actor that he could easily have made a career of playing Shakespeare, Ibsen and Eugene O’Neill in the West End; however, that was not to be his fate. In 2004, he was chosen to play Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s small-screen biopic of the physics genius, Hawking, and gave a brilliant performance that won him a Best Actor nomination at the BAFTA Awards. A number of other TV roles followed (including playing opposite fellow TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY star Tom Hardy in Stuart: A Life Backwards in 2007) before he found even greater success playing another brilliant British brain, Sherlock Holmes, in Sherlock, the smash hit BBC series that transposes Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries to the present day. “There’s a great charge you get from playing him, because of the volume of words in your head and the speed of thought – you really have to make your connections incredibly fast,” Cumberbatch told The Guardian about playing Holmes. “He is one step ahead of the audience, and of anyone around him with normal intellect.”
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
![nightowl81:
[ 30 DAYS OF CUMBERBATCH ][ Day 29: Your Absolutely Favourite Thing About Mr. Cumberbatch ]
I don’t want to bore you with my fangirly rants that might turn into essays if you let me talk about Benedict too much, so here are just a few of my reasons to like/love/adore/admire that man:— he’s not just handsome - he looks interesting, he’s unique and peculiar (and in a very good way); the longer you watch him, the more captivating he is— his Sherlock was the reason I finally decided to read ACD, which is something that makes me particularly thankful because those stories are simply amazing— he’s extremely passionate and very dedicated to his work; he’s gracious, humble, gentle and charming in public; he’s wise and sensible when he speaks…— even if you don’t like him all that much, there’s no denying he’s extremely talented; as an actor he has incerdible sensitivity; I’d even say he’s one of the best actors of his generation— he actually makes you proud to be a fan of his because his good and clever work choices (and the number of charities he takes part in) only prove that he’s all about quality, effort and fulfillment - something so many actors seem to have forgotten about
All of this… I feel like writing an essay again, too…](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ur3y8Nz2R4rLArPaiihFhGOla9Kbunl7S1vaxIG9S721khtORzyAbHZjtmSmg7SKD6CwOqR0j_gwBE9M22R4ddcv1n4skywf0Q9f4WtXKHU0m4VwmESwc7mEL0VZxETgQ=s0-d)
The actor is in danger of becoming Britain’s greatest leading man after nailing Sherlock and his roles in Frankenstein.
This is Benedict Cumberbatch’s moment. He is a one-man explosion of thespian hotness after a confluence of extraordinary performances on stage, screen and television. He has just finished playing Dr Frankenstein and The Creature at the National Theatre to sensational reviews; he is appearing in three new films this year, including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; and he is up for a Bafta next week for his role as Holmes in the BBC television series Sherlock.
At 34 Cumberbatch is far too young to be a national treasure, but his certificate is in the post. Indeed there is something furtively Colin Firthy about him. His looks are paler and more bookish than most leading men — when we meet his hair is reddish-gold and he strikes me as more Bowie than beefcake — but his acting ability leaves most of his generation languishing behind in the cheap seats.
What Cumberbatch does brilliantly is male comradeship, of the old-fashioned, posh sort. The nuances and niggles of the modern-day Holmes and Watson’s codependent relationship fascinate us: “Two bachelors living together … it’s worth re-examining that in the 21st century,” Cumberbatch tells me. In Frankenstein, the disgust, passion and sympathy raised by The Creature
in his creator took on a schizophrenic complexity as Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller swapped roles every night. They stood fearless and naked in the spotlight, reduced to their basest
selves. In the independent film Third Star, out next week, Cumberbatch takes this male bonding
trope to dangerous psychological extremes.
The movie is a sort of four-go-mad-in-Pembrokeshire tragicomedy, a camping trip that goes from
ballbreaking to heartbreaking. Cumberbatch delivers an agonising performance as James, an ethereal creature with a will of iron, who sports a brown fedora and a sharp tongue. James is 29,
and will not see his 30th birthday, because of an unspecified cancer. Yet this makes for fine
comedy. “It’s very understated, not touchy-feely, not that modern disease of wearing your heart
on your sleeve,” Cumberbatch says crisply, with a Holmes-like radar for hogwash.
Rarely do you watch men in this kind of week-long, profound and funny conversation — except,
say, the The Big Chill. Just because their mate is dying, the lads see no reason not to make fun
of him, and combine tenderness with brutal honesty. “It’s like going for a walk with a sick white
Oprah,” they laugh when he tries to advise them on their lives. “You look like shit,” one adds,
helpfully.
He did. To play James, Cumberbatch wanted to shave off his hair, “but I was slated to play
Sherlock, so I couldn’t”. Instead he became so thin and pale that towards the end of the movie, he
seems to float off. His regime was strict: “I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking,
no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.”
In Third Star his friends are played by the handsome trio of J. J. Feild, Adam Robertson, and Tom
Burke, with a chemistry part acted and partly brought about by the exigencies of the October
shoot — hours spent in frozen water in Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire, coupled with grim food
and collapsing tents. “We improvised around the weather, which turned out to be the fifth star of
the film,” says Cumberbatch. “It was stunning; we were really blessed. We wanted to give all of it
an improvised feel, to help the atmosphere, and ad-libbed peripheral moments along the journey.
It’s the banter you’d expect from four friends who have hung out for a long time.”
It is intelligent banter. These are highly educated men in their late twenties, who haven’t quite
grown up. “Yes, it’s not The Hangover,” Cumberbatch says. But the four friends want what James
calls “a Man Thrill”, unavailable in the modern world. Vaughan Sivell, the film’s writer, explains:
“This generation is living longer, not going into the trenches at 18, and the time spent bumming
around lasts and lasts. There’s no reason for them to be heroic; they are the iPod generation
running round Soho and their worst problem is that their laptop won’t sync with their phone. So I
wanted to put pressure on these men, the time pressure that comes with someone dying, and
watch what they did.”
Cumberbatch’s ease with emotional (and physical) nakedness leaves “Benedict Cumberbatch gay”
riding high on popular Google searches, but in fact he lived in Hampstead with The Thick of It
actress Olivia Poulet for more than a decade until they broke up a few months ago. He has been
spotted out clubbing with the “Cumbergang”, which includes Matt Smith, the Doctor Who actor,
and fellow actors from the forthcoming War Horse film. He likes to swim in the ponds on
Hampstead Heath, and favours Black’s, the private members’ club in Central London. His female
fanclub is growing — on Twitter, the group @Cumberbitches provides information on and
adoration of their idol.
Last week at a gala for the Royal Court there was feverish excitement as gentlemen in black tie
and ladies in silk dug deep into their pockets to “purchase” Cumberbatch himself. I watched as
they craned their necks to glimpse the back of his curly head deep in conversation at the centre
table. After a hard-fought battle the actor was auctioned for £6,000 — or at least a lunch hour
with him, on the set of Sherlock. Later, Cumberbatch leapt up and joined other actors in a table-
prancing comedy about the history of the theatre, parodying Sir Laurence Olivier to riotous
applause. Although Cumberbatch normally rides around London in leathers on a huge motorbike
— to ensure invisibility, he claims — he looked utterly at home in a tuxedo and bow tie, like the
impeccably mannered Harrow school boy he is.
The son of two British television actors, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, he grew up in
Kensington. He took himself off to the University of Manchester to shake off some of the London
luvviness, but returned for drama school at LAMDA. Only two years after finishing, he turned
heads with his performance as a young Professor Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s Hawking.
Cumberbatch’s consummate Englishness serves him well: he has finished filming for the role of
George Smiley’s protégé Peter Guillam in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, out in cinemas in
September, and he plays Major Stewart in Spielberg’s screen adaptation of War Horse, released
in December. Cumberbatch has a Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade moment, brandishing a sword on
a huge Spanish stallion. His most popular role, however, is as the modern Sherlock, at once
bombastic and brilliant. The first series had an audience of seven million and after we meet he is
heading back to Wales to film the second series. Rather like House, another Sherlockian figure,
this modern detective is infuriating. Yet the audience revels in his superiority and straight talking.
“Holmes is a very attractive character to play,” Cumberbatch says, “because he gets to speak his
mind, he has extraordinary abilities, and it’s just a lot of fun. In the hands of those two scriptwriters
you get a lot of beautifully drawn out character studies and scenarios.”
Vaughan Sivell, the writer of Third Star, says that Cumberbatch’s skill as an actor is in being not
only very intelligent and attentive, but also generous in discussing each part. “He was deeply
aware of the feeling of a man losing his place in the Universe, and wanting to right everything
before he goes. Even in this mundane business of camping, we see it in his face all the time, and
he’s technically brilliant, because you’re not aware he’s doing it.”
Hattie Dalton, the director, shot the movie for £450,000 in a matter of weeks. “Hattie was under
huge pressure,” Cumberbatch says. “Yet she was a life force, so emotionally engaged she’d be in a stream of tears giving direction.” In turn, Dalton thinks that anyone could have played the role of James for sympathy, but Cumberbatch dared to bring arrogance and anger to it. “He thinks just because he’s going to die he can tell everyone how to live their lives. But what I think is beautiful is that he’s the one that learns the most in the end.” Third Star somehow manages to be cathartic, although in the screening I attended everyone simply sat in stunned silence, unmoving, as the credits rolled. “It’s about tricking an audience into just being entertained and then slowly the penny drops. It’s about resonance, isn’t it?” Dalton says. “That’s why a lot of people are walking away not feeling depressed, because James got what he wanted and it was beautiful.”
The film tackles a subject that hangs over us all constantly, but this is not some “C for cancer” comedy. It is more about four men working out how their lives should be lived. “I’ve been very privileged to be around a couple of people who were dying,” Cumberbatch says, “and it’s incredible what affirmation there can be, what clarity of mind there is at the last point.”
It’s this ability to retain humility and sensitivity while his star ascends that shows that Cumberbatch is an old-fashioned sort — and a gentleman.
This is Benedict Cumberbatch’s moment. He is a one-man explosion of thespian hotness after a confluence of extraordinary performances on stage, screen and television. He has just finished playing Dr Frankenstein and The Creature at the National Theatre to sensational reviews; he is appearing in three new films this year, including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; and he is up for a Bafta next week for his role as Holmes in the BBC television series Sherlock.
At 34 Cumberbatch is far too young to be a national treasure, but his certificate is in the post. Indeed there is something furtively Colin Firthy about him. His looks are paler and more bookish than most leading men — when we meet his hair is reddish-gold and he strikes me as more Bowie than beefcake — but his acting ability leaves most of his generation languishing behind in the cheap seats.
What Cumberbatch does brilliantly is male comradeship, of the old-fashioned, posh sort. The nuances and niggles of the modern-day Holmes and Watson’s codependent relationship fascinate us: “Two bachelors living together … it’s worth re-examining that in the 21st century,” Cumberbatch tells me. In Frankenstein, the disgust, passion and sympathy raised by The Creature
in his creator took on a schizophrenic complexity as Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller swapped roles every night. They stood fearless and naked in the spotlight, reduced to their basest
selves. In the independent film Third Star, out next week, Cumberbatch takes this male bonding
trope to dangerous psychological extremes.
The movie is a sort of four-go-mad-in-Pembrokeshire tragicomedy, a camping trip that goes from
ballbreaking to heartbreaking. Cumberbatch delivers an agonising performance as James, an ethereal creature with a will of iron, who sports a brown fedora and a sharp tongue. James is 29,
and will not see his 30th birthday, because of an unspecified cancer. Yet this makes for fine
comedy. “It’s very understated, not touchy-feely, not that modern disease of wearing your heart
on your sleeve,” Cumberbatch says crisply, with a Holmes-like radar for hogwash.
Rarely do you watch men in this kind of week-long, profound and funny conversation — except,
say, the The Big Chill. Just because their mate is dying, the lads see no reason not to make fun
of him, and combine tenderness with brutal honesty. “It’s like going for a walk with a sick white
Oprah,” they laugh when he tries to advise them on their lives. “You look like shit,” one adds,
helpfully.
He did. To play James, Cumberbatch wanted to shave off his hair, “but I was slated to play
Sherlock, so I couldn’t”. Instead he became so thin and pale that towards the end of the movie, he
seems to float off. His regime was strict: “I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking,
no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.”
In Third Star his friends are played by the handsome trio of J. J. Feild, Adam Robertson, and Tom
Burke, with a chemistry part acted and partly brought about by the exigencies of the October
shoot — hours spent in frozen water in Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire, coupled with grim food
and collapsing tents. “We improvised around the weather, which turned out to be the fifth star of
the film,” says Cumberbatch. “It was stunning; we were really blessed. We wanted to give all of it
an improvised feel, to help the atmosphere, and ad-libbed peripheral moments along the journey.
It’s the banter you’d expect from four friends who have hung out for a long time.”
It is intelligent banter. These are highly educated men in their late twenties, who haven’t quite
grown up. “Yes, it’s not The Hangover,” Cumberbatch says. But the four friends want what James
calls “a Man Thrill”, unavailable in the modern world. Vaughan Sivell, the film’s writer, explains:
“This generation is living longer, not going into the trenches at 18, and the time spent bumming
around lasts and lasts. There’s no reason for them to be heroic; they are the iPod generation
running round Soho and their worst problem is that their laptop won’t sync with their phone. So I
wanted to put pressure on these men, the time pressure that comes with someone dying, and
watch what they did.”
Cumberbatch’s ease with emotional (and physical) nakedness leaves “Benedict Cumberbatch gay”
riding high on popular Google searches, but in fact he lived in Hampstead with The Thick of It
actress Olivia Poulet for more than a decade until they broke up a few months ago. He has been
spotted out clubbing with the “Cumbergang”, which includes Matt Smith, the Doctor Who actor,
and fellow actors from the forthcoming War Horse film. He likes to swim in the ponds on
Hampstead Heath, and favours Black’s, the private members’ club in Central London. His female
fanclub is growing — on Twitter, the group @Cumberbitches provides information on and
adoration of their idol.
Last week at a gala for the Royal Court there was feverish excitement as gentlemen in black tie
and ladies in silk dug deep into their pockets to “purchase” Cumberbatch himself. I watched as
they craned their necks to glimpse the back of his curly head deep in conversation at the centre
table. After a hard-fought battle the actor was auctioned for £6,000 — or at least a lunch hour
with him, on the set of Sherlock. Later, Cumberbatch leapt up and joined other actors in a table-
prancing comedy about the history of the theatre, parodying Sir Laurence Olivier to riotous
applause. Although Cumberbatch normally rides around London in leathers on a huge motorbike
— to ensure invisibility, he claims — he looked utterly at home in a tuxedo and bow tie, like the
impeccably mannered Harrow school boy he is.
The son of two British television actors, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, he grew up in
Kensington. He took himself off to the University of Manchester to shake off some of the London
luvviness, but returned for drama school at LAMDA. Only two years after finishing, he turned
heads with his performance as a young Professor Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s Hawking.
Cumberbatch’s consummate Englishness serves him well: he has finished filming for the role of
George Smiley’s protégé Peter Guillam in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, out in cinemas in
September, and he plays Major Stewart in Spielberg’s screen adaptation of War Horse, released
in December. Cumberbatch has a Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade moment, brandishing a sword on
a huge Spanish stallion. His most popular role, however, is as the modern Sherlock, at once
bombastic and brilliant. The first series had an audience of seven million and after we meet he is
heading back to Wales to film the second series. Rather like House, another Sherlockian figure,
this modern detective is infuriating. Yet the audience revels in his superiority and straight talking.
“Holmes is a very attractive character to play,” Cumberbatch says, “because he gets to speak his
mind, he has extraordinary abilities, and it’s just a lot of fun. In the hands of those two scriptwriters
you get a lot of beautifully drawn out character studies and scenarios.”
Vaughan Sivell, the writer of Third Star, says that Cumberbatch’s skill as an actor is in being not
only very intelligent and attentive, but also generous in discussing each part. “He was deeply
aware of the feeling of a man losing his place in the Universe, and wanting to right everything
before he goes. Even in this mundane business of camping, we see it in his face all the time, and
he’s technically brilliant, because you’re not aware he’s doing it.”
Hattie Dalton, the director, shot the movie for £450,000 in a matter of weeks. “Hattie was under
huge pressure,” Cumberbatch says. “Yet she was a life force, so emotionally engaged she’d be in a stream of tears giving direction.” In turn, Dalton thinks that anyone could have played the role of James for sympathy, but Cumberbatch dared to bring arrogance and anger to it. “He thinks just because he’s going to die he can tell everyone how to live their lives. But what I think is beautiful is that he’s the one that learns the most in the end.” Third Star somehow manages to be cathartic, although in the screening I attended everyone simply sat in stunned silence, unmoving, as the credits rolled. “It’s about tricking an audience into just being entertained and then slowly the penny drops. It’s about resonance, isn’t it?” Dalton says. “That’s why a lot of people are walking away not feeling depressed, because James got what he wanted and it was beautiful.”
The film tackles a subject that hangs over us all constantly, but this is not some “C for cancer” comedy. It is more about four men working out how their lives should be lived. “I’ve been very privileged to be around a couple of people who were dying,” Cumberbatch says, “and it’s incredible what affirmation there can be, what clarity of mind there is at the last point.”
It’s this ability to retain humility and sensitivity while his star ascends that shows that Cumberbatch is an old-fashioned sort — and a gentleman.
Monday, 24 October 2011
![cabletvandjello:
sexy alphabet ↳ c [3/3] · colin morgan](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_taLwNAWOrKDLkmSc7N_8Lz0q8FI9p79tl3IvecBiepTexlyG4S7f5F_hZjvJ9gS3DFuifF85uQNsfswFMlrIMbql52ekG_HB7BtOP8TBv06KllH_HzINNCUQNvvqj4Ko8=s0-d)
S. Moffat on Benedict Cumberbatch
S: Benedict’s got the looks of a Sherlock Holmes. He’s got that leading man sort of a thing. That Byronic thing. Given that we wanted Sherlock Holmes at the start of his career, when he has to be about thirty, he’s one of the very few actors about that age who’s got the gravitas and the imperiousness that will sell Sherlock Holmes to you. He has to be able to lord over proper police people. Walk into a room and do that.
M: Benedict was the only person we saw and it just clicks right away.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Movies & Booze review for Parked
Parked
Director: Darragh Byrne
Cast: Colm Meaney, Colin Morgan, Milka Ahlroth, Stuart Graham.
Receiving its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh, Parked, the debut feature from Darragh Byrne, opened the festival. Unlike the other Film Festivals in Ireland, the Galway Film Fleadh are arguably some of the greatest supporters of the director’s first feature and with this in mind, one of the finest first Irish features opened the 23rd Fleadh. Way back in July, I was one of a lucky few who managed to catch this early screening and returned to Dublin raving that we had witnessed another amazing Irish production, perhaps overshadowed at the event by the wonderful Guard. Darragh Byrne introduced the film with his producers on stage, following an uplifting speech by Michael D. Higgins and there has been a certain amount of expectation around the film following its success on the festival circuit abroad.
Parked follows the story of Fred, a middle-aged guy, down on his luck after returning from England, who lives in his car. Living a solitary life, he becomes wary when a young dope smoking 21-year old named Cathal invades his car park. With no one in his life, and seemingly no one to care about him, Cathal begins to forge a relationship with Fred out of lonliness, and at times it would seem, boredom. Fred becomes Cathal’s project, determined to sort his life out, he accompanies him on his disastrous visit to the Social Welfare office and attempts to help him continue to see Jules, a woman Fred has bumped into in their local haunt, the swimming centre. However, as much as Cathal helps Fred discover some of his long-lost self-confidence, he is completely unable to help himself. His drug problem continues to spin out of control, and within frequent violent visits to their car park from various no-goods whom he has fallen in with, Fred becomes overly concerned for Cathal’s welfare.
Beginning slowly and building momentum, Byrne seeks to display the complete isolation that Fred lives in, his routines perhaps the one thing that is holding his sanity together. Colm Meaney gives an exceptional performance as Fred, who despite the various difficult situations he finds himself in, never fails to lose his humanity, or indeed his good humour. However, the stand out performance is Colin Morgan as Cathal, who will actually break your heart. Although 21 and what we would consider an adult, Morgan’s character comes across as a lost child whose life continues to spiral out of his control. Fred becomes his rock, even though it would seem that he depends on Cathal more than vice versa. This relationship becomes more than touching and their final escapade will bring a tear to the eye. Despite the sombre nature of the story, comedic scenes are peppered throughout, particularly their visit to Jules house to have tea. Touching, sad and often hilariously funny, Parked is another one of the Irish features of late that continue to keep up our amazing reputation abroad.
Darragh Byrne’s first feature, let’s hope for many more.
Director: Darragh Byrne
Cast: Colm Meaney, Colin Morgan, Milka Ahlroth, Stuart Graham.
Receiving its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh, Parked, the debut feature from Darragh Byrne, opened the festival. Unlike the other Film Festivals in Ireland, the Galway Film Fleadh are arguably some of the greatest supporters of the director’s first feature and with this in mind, one of the finest first Irish features opened the 23rd Fleadh. Way back in July, I was one of a lucky few who managed to catch this early screening and returned to Dublin raving that we had witnessed another amazing Irish production, perhaps overshadowed at the event by the wonderful Guard. Darragh Byrne introduced the film with his producers on stage, following an uplifting speech by Michael D. Higgins and there has been a certain amount of expectation around the film following its success on the festival circuit abroad.
Parked follows the story of Fred, a middle-aged guy, down on his luck after returning from England, who lives in his car. Living a solitary life, he becomes wary when a young dope smoking 21-year old named Cathal invades his car park. With no one in his life, and seemingly no one to care about him, Cathal begins to forge a relationship with Fred out of lonliness, and at times it would seem, boredom. Fred becomes Cathal’s project, determined to sort his life out, he accompanies him on his disastrous visit to the Social Welfare office and attempts to help him continue to see Jules, a woman Fred has bumped into in their local haunt, the swimming centre. However, as much as Cathal helps Fred discover some of his long-lost self-confidence, he is completely unable to help himself. His drug problem continues to spin out of control, and within frequent violent visits to their car park from various no-goods whom he has fallen in with, Fred becomes overly concerned for Cathal’s welfare.
Beginning slowly and building momentum, Byrne seeks to display the complete isolation that Fred lives in, his routines perhaps the one thing that is holding his sanity together. Colm Meaney gives an exceptional performance as Fred, who despite the various difficult situations he finds himself in, never fails to lose his humanity, or indeed his good humour. However, the stand out performance is Colin Morgan as Cathal, who will actually break your heart. Although 21 and what we would consider an adult, Morgan’s character comes across as a lost child whose life continues to spiral out of his control. Fred becomes his rock, even though it would seem that he depends on Cathal more than vice versa. This relationship becomes more than touching and their final escapade will bring a tear to the eye. Despite the sombre nature of the story, comedic scenes are peppered throughout, particularly their visit to Jules house to have tea. Touching, sad and often hilariously funny, Parked is another one of the Irish features of late that continue to keep up our amazing reputation abroad.
Darragh Byrne’s first feature, let’s hope for many more.
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