Keswick Film Club - Glassland

Synopsis

John drives a taxi long hours each day, trying to make a living from the Dublin suburbs where he lives. He is not trying to escape his environment, but to survive, and to keep his alcoholic mother alive at the same time. Their lives are grim; arriving home, his first thought is will his mother be collapsed in an alcoholic stupor, will she have run off, or will she be dead?

Held together by great performances from Jack Raynor and Toni Collette, it is, nonetheless, the writer/director, Gerard Butler, who gets the highest praise as "the elliptical storytelling and, most of all, the stillness of the frame somehow allow a seemingly everyday story to radiate and reveal an inner life that’s captivating and immersive in the way it combines expressive acuity with humane insight...the best Irish film in years"- Trevor Johnston, Sight & Sound.