Agnes Browne
Ireland 1999
Reviewed by Kevin Maher
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Dublin, 1967. Newly widowed Agnes Browne, the mother of seven children, borrows money from the local moneylender Mr Billy to pay for her husband's funeral. One month later, Mr Billy accosts Agnes and takes her children's allowance book as security against repayments. Agnes' best friend Marion discovers a lump in her breast and goes for tests while Pierre, a French baker, asks Agnes out. A pension cheque allows Agnes to pay off Mr Billy, but he secretly loans more cash to her son Mark. Agnes discovers Marion is dying, and the two women go on a day trip on which Marion buys tickets to a Tom Jones concert.
Agnes buys Marion a driving lesson, but she collapses while having it and dies later in hospital. Mr Billy tells Agnes that thanks to Mark, she now has until Christmas week to pay back 10. Agnes receives a letter from her husband's old union saying she has 25 to collect from the hotel where he worked.
The Browne children run down to the hotel where they meet Tom Jones. They tell him their story. He visits Agnes and helps her pay off Mr Billy. That night at his concert, he dedicates a song to Agnes Browne.
Review
With her directorial debut Bastard out of Carolina, actor-turned-director Anjelica Huston essayed the domestic violence and sexual abuse that defined the dysfunctional family in Dorothy Allison's source novel. With her second film Agnes Browne Huston swings in the opposite direction. Despite the similar set-up - it's also adapted from a novel, The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll, about working-class family hardships - this is mawkish fantasy, wrapped up in jaded Irish cultural clichés.
The very first crane shot dipping into Dublin's Market Street, where Agnes (Huston) has her fruit-and-vegetable stall, says much about Huston's over-reliance on misty-eyed Quiet Mannerisms for her portrait. Here a traditional music group plays while a young colleen dances a jig along the footpath (no, seriously). Meanwhile pub sing-alongs break out as the Market Street sellers take afternoon breaks for streetside porter drinking sessions. The characters too, living up to expectations, are devout God-fearing church-goers and borderline alcoholics. They call sex "the quare thing" and have never heard of orgasms, French kissing or breast cancer. When Agnes' best friend Marion announces, with a bland half-smile playing across her lips, "I'm after gettin' a lump on me diddy," the movie unwittingly verges on crude self-parody.
Agnes' predicament of being a single mother of seven living in debt is rarely squeezed for its dramatic potential (these are the most contented, peaceful and loving seven starving children you've ever seen). Instead, taking her cue from The Commitments, The Snapper and The General, Huston prefers to play urban Irish poverty for its humour - "Mark, get out a tha' fuckin' toilet now!" she bellows in her best Dublin accent, only minutes before her husband's funeral.
Much of this grandstanding originates in O'Carroll's novel and screenplay (adapted with television writer John Goldsmith) which is in thrall to the idea of the Dublin 'character' - a literary archetype passed down from James Joyce to Sean O'Casey to Brendan Behan - the garrulous working-class individual who's never short of a well-constructed witticism. So many of Agnes Browne's scenes are set up solely for the comic pay-off. "Seven children and not one organism to show for it!" she says, milking the malapropism.
Dramatic and narrative logic are equally neglected. Agnes' burgeoning relationship with Pierre the French-national-stereotype baker simply fizzles out once all the French-kissing jokes are used up. Similarly, Agnes' best friend Marion is plucked out half way through the movie (she's given a pain-free cancer that knocks her out and kills her on the same day) with no effect on Agnes or the movie's storyline.
Generally the narrative is episodic, rambling from mildly distracting set piece to set piece until an uncomfortable-looking Tom Jones arrives to cauterise this endless tale with a feel-good concert finale. Unfortunately the presence of a clearly 1999 Tom Jones in a 1967 period tale destroys what thin veil of illusion Agnes Browne was trying to cast. Nonetheless, it seems an appropriate, whimsical ending to an extremely slight movie experience.
Credits
- Director
- Anjelica Huston
- Producers
- Jim Sheridan
- Arthur Lappin
- Anjelica Huston
- Greg Smith
- Screenplay
- John Goldsmith
- Brendan O'Carroll
- Based on the novel 'The Mammy by
- Brendan O'Carroll
- Director of Photography
- Anthony B. Richmond
- Editor
- Eva Gardos
- Production Designer
- David Brockhurst
- Music
- Paddy Moloney
- Production Companies
- October Films present a Hell's Kitchen production
- Produced with the support of investment incentives for the Irish Film Industry provided by the Government of Ireland
- Produced with the assistance of Bord Scannán na hÉireann/The Irish Film Board
- Executive Producers
- Morgan O'Sullivan
- Tom Palmieri
- Laurie Mansfield
- Gerry Browne
- Bord Scannán na hÉireann:
- Rod Stoneman
- Line Producer
- Paul Myler
- Production Executive
- Hell's Kitchen:
- Clare Scully
- Production Co-ordinator
- Maria Collins
- Production Manager
- Jo Homewood
- Locations Manager
- Paddy McCarney
- Post-production Supervisor
- Tim Pedegana
- Assistant Directors
- Simon Moseley
- Paul E. Barnes
- Brian 'Joker' Mulvey
- Script Supervisors
- Peggy Brazil
- Caroline Sax
- Casting
- Maureen Hughes
- Co-ordinator:
- Jill Dempsey
- Camera Operators
- George Richmond
- Séamus Corcoran
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Jim Brady
- Special Effects Technician
- Kevin Nolan
- Costume Designer
- Joan Bergin
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Jo Kissack
- Make-up
- Key Designer:
- Morag Ross
- Artist:
- Melissa Lackersteen
- Key Hairdresser
- Eithné Fennell
- Hairdresser
- Bernie Dooley
- Title Design
- Pablo Ferro
- Main/End Titles
- Title House
- Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Uilleann Pipes
- Ronan Browne
- Orchestrations
- Ed Shearmur
- Traditional Music Supervisor
- Ronan Browne
- Music Editors
- Alex Gibson
- George A. Martin
- Music Engineer
- Brian Masterson
- Soundtrack
- "Magnificat Cum Alleluia" arranged/performed by Noirin Ní Riain; "She's a Lady" by Paul Anka, performed by Tom Jones; "Sous les ponts de Paris" by J. Rodor, Vincent Scotto; "Delilah" by Les Reed, Barry Mason, performed by Tom Jones; "(It Feels Like) I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Jimmy Currie, Lonnie Donegan, performed by Tom Jones; "Petite Fleur" by Sidney Bechet, performed by Chris Barber's Jazz Band; "Heureuse" by René Rouzaud, Marguerite Monnot, performed by Anne Bushnell; "It's Not Unusual" by Gordon Mills, Les Reed, performed by Tom Jones; "He'll Have to Go" by Joe Allison, Audrey Allison, performed by Jim Reeves; "My Bonnie" traditional arrangement by Paddy Moloney, Laura Smith, performed by Laura Smith; "The Last Rose of Summer" traditional arrangement by Paddy Moloney, performed by The Chieftains and Montserrat Caballé
- Sound Supervisor
- Peter Austin
- Sound Mixer
- Peter Sutton
- Re-recording Mixers
- David Fluhr
- Don DiGirolamo
- Adam Jenkins
- Dialogue Editors
- Ralph H. Osborn III
- Paul Longstaffe
- Barbara Issak
- Dennis Gray
- Benjamin Beardwood
- Sound Effects Editors
- Brian Thomas Nist
- Joseph H. Earle
- Eric A. Norris
- Kenneth Johnson
- Bradley C. Katona
- Andrew Ellerd
- Dubbing Stage Recordist
- Aaron Levy
- ADR
- Recording Engineers:
- John Fitzgerald
- Michelle Cuniffe
- Gerry Roche
- Gregory Steele
- Dean Drabin
- Editor:
- David Melhase
- Foley
- Artists:
- Alyson Moore
- Patricia Nedd
- Ginger Geary
- Mixer:
- Brian Ruberg
- Editor:
- David Melhase
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Donal O'Farrell
- Cast
- Anjelica Huston
- Agnes Browne
- Marion O'Dwyer
- Marion Monks
- Ray Winstone
- Mr Billy
- Arno Chevrier
- Pierre
- Gerard McSorley
- Mr Aherne
- Niall O'Shea
- Mark Browne
- Ciarán Owens
- Frankie Browne
- Roxanna Williams
- Cathy Browne
- Carl Power
- Simon Browne
- Mark Power
- Dermot Browne
- Gareth O'Connor
- Rory Browne
- James Lappin
- Trevor Browne
- Tom Jones
- himself
- Fionnuala Murphy
- girl at Social Security office
- Gavin Kelty
- Micko
- Brendan O'Carroll
- Seamus the Drunk
- Ronan Browne
- Patrick O'Gorman
- Des Leech
- Michael O'Toole
- Gerard Doyle
- Kevin Clarkin
- Desmond Wilkinson
- Sean Corcoran
- traditional musicians
- Malachy Connolly
- Buddha
- June Rodgers
- Fat Annie
- Jennifer Gibney
- Winnie the Mackerel
- Katriona Boland
- Splish
- Bernadette Lattimore
- Splash
- Richie Walker
- Jacko the Box
- Sean Fox
- Liam the Sweeper
- Pauline McCreery
- Chrissie McCreery
- women in market
- Virginia Cole
- woman with jumpers
- Buster
- Sparticus the dog
- Steve Blount
- Tommo Monks
- Noirin Ní Riain
- Church soprano
- Arthur Lappin
- priest
- Paddy McCarney
- hearse driver
- Terry Byrne
- Carmichael
- Joe Hanley
- Rooney
- Joanne Sloane
- The Widow Clarke
- Cristen Kauffman
- woman buying fish
- Joe Gallagher
- post office clerk
- Frank Melia
- shopkeeper
- Keith Murtagh
- market spiv
- Clodagh Long
- Mary Dowdall
- Aedin Moloney
- shop assistant
- Eamonn Hunt
- Mr Foley
- Jim Smith
- butcher
- Olivia Tracey
- posh customer with dog
- Tara Van Zyl
- shop assistant
- Tallis Music Services
- band on seaside pavilion
- Peter Dix
- man in pub
- Anna Megan
- singer in restaurant
- Anne Bushnell
- Pat Fitzpatrick
- Patrick Collins
- Michael Flynn
- restaurant band
- Frank McCusker
- Tom O'Toole
- Doreen Keogh
- nun in mortuary
- Sandra Corbally
- nurse in mortuary
- Joe Pigott
- Wally the ticket tout
- Maria Hayden
- receptionist at The Shelbourne Hotel
- Cecil Bell
- Mr O'Dwyer
- Don Archell
- Tom Jones' minder
- Peter Adams
- Ian Thompson
- Keith Airey
- Steve Pearce
- The Tom Jones Band
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 8,270 feet
- 91 minutes 53 seconds
- Dolby digital
- Colour by
- Technicolor Ltd