THE SNAPPER
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Colm Meaney, Tina Kellegher, Ruth McCabe, Pat Laffan. Screenplay: Roddy Doyle. Director: Stephen Frears.
Television has given the term "situation comedy" a bad name, but that might be the most appropriate epithet for THE SNAPPER. This bright and earthy comedy from Roddy Doyle (THE COMMITMENTS) deals with an average Irish family coping with one of life's many little difficulties. There's no high concept, no men in drag or mistaken identities. THE SNAPPER is just remarkably adept at making the mundane comic, at making us laugh at real life. Thanks largely to Colm Meaney's charming lead performance, it's just one of the most purely enjoyable comedies of 1993.
THE SNAPPER is Irish slang for a baby, which is exactly what Barrytown, Dublin resident Sharon Curley (Tina Kellegher) is expecting. The one small complication: twenty-year-old Sharon is unmarried. Her parents Dessie (Colm Meaney) and Kay (Ruth McCabe) are more than understanding, but they don't understand why Sharon won't reveal the father's name. Her reluctance becomes clearer when George Burgess (Pat Laffan), a paunchy, married neighbor and the father of one of Sharon's friends, drunkenly announces that Sharon was "a good ride." Sharon denies that George is the father, insisting instead on a one-night stand with a Spanish sailor, but soon all of Barrytown is abuzz with the gossip, causing great consternation in the Curley household.
With such a simple premise, execution becomes paramount, and THE SNAPPER is very well-executed. Director Stephen Frears (DANGEROUS LIAISONS, HERO) keeps the comedy human by concentrating on faces and reactions, a technique used most effectively during pub scenes where extreme close-ups of drunken individuals emphasizes distorted perceptions. These are loud and boisterous characters (a bit excessively so in the case of Sharon's cackling clique), and Frears allows this liveliness to permeate the film. Without resorting to location cityscapes, Frears creates a rich atmosphere peopled with sparkling characters.
The standout among those characters is Colm Meaney's Dessie. Dessie is a unique creation, a loving father and husband who avoids the slew of cliches typical of Irish characters and father characters in general. Yes, he enjoys his pint at the pub with the boys, but he's also attuned to modern sensibilities. "Times have changed," he tells Sharon in one scene. "When Craig was born, I was at work; when you were born, I was at work; when Lisa was born, I don't know where I was." Meaney is perfect, playing a more nuanced version of the same character he played in THE COMMITMENTS. His moments with Sharon are wonderfully warm, even through his frustration at the embarrassment her condition has caused him; particularly good is a brief, low-key scene as Dessie shares with Sharon his amazement at the contents of a book on sexuality. He's also a man who genuinely loves his wife, and you never doubt for a moment that Dessie and Kay have been married for twenty-five years. It's a performance unlikely to garner much attention for award nominations, but its as deserving of honors as any work out there.
The rest of the cast is a bit more uneven. Ruth McCabe is equal to Meaney as the acerbic mother Kay, playing good cop to Dessie's bad cop. Tina Kellegher is fine when she's toned down, but when she gets fiery she gets annoying. Even more so is Fionnuala Murphy as Sharon's best friend Jackie. Pat Laffan's George Burgess is a small role, but he does quite a lot with it, making George a rather pathetic figure. Generally, THE SNAPPER is better when it's not in the pub, and the volume knob on the characters is turned down.
Some viewers may be made uncomfortable by the circumstances surrounding Sharon's sexual encounter, but I found the story depended on those circumstances, and that Sharon's response to her situation defined her character. THE SNAPPER doesn't moralize, it just sets up a scenario and lets characters react. I found those reactions extremely funny, although I needed to break out my Irish- to-American profanity dictionary on more than one occasion. You'll need to play close attention to pick up all the dialogue in THE SNAPPER, but it will be well worth the effort.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 snappers: 8.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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