Movie Scene: A nice advert for Donegal

The latest ‘hot-novel-to-become-a-film’ rolls off the conveyor belt this week with ‘Four Letters of Love’, based on the successful tome by Niall Williams. Filmed in both Donegal and Ballycastle, it’s a tale of love, divine intervention and cosmic forces all wrapped up in rugged scenery and a liberal dose of paddywhackery.

The film begins with William (a seriously-miscast Pierce Brosnan), a Dublin civil servant who, thanks to the weather, decides that he must quit his job and become a painter, much to the chagrin of wife Betty (Imelda May) and son Nicholas (Fionn O’Shea).

William travels west to paint – while his accent travels through all 32 counties – leaving a dysfunctional family dynamic.

A parallel plot has island poet-teacher Muiris (Gabriel Byrne) and wife Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) living in a house straight out of ‘The Quiet Man’ with daughter Issy (Ann Skelly) and Seanie (Donal Flynn). When Seanie has an accident that leaves him wheelchair-bound, Izzy is sent packing to a convent-run school but , it seems, is destined to meet Nicholas despite being in different stories.

I always try and support local cinema wherever possible; that said, I can safely say the people who will be most satisfied with ‘Four Letters of Love’ are the Donegal branch of Fáilte Ireland. It’s one of those films that will appeal mostly to Irish Americans brought up on tales of the ‘Old Country’, offering a syrupy ‘bejaysus and begorrah’ depiction of Ireland with the only real hint of modernity offered by Peader (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) owning a car and a business in 1970s Ireland (get him!).

As plot gears shift into ever-more convoluted and preposterous twists of fate which lead to Nicholas and Issy’s inevitable meeting, it opens the film up to more cries of, “Really?! They’re doing that?” One twist in particular had me audibly swearing at the screen!

Thanks to the spiritual claptrap being spouted and those previously-mentioned contrivances, I was constantly reminded of 2016’s ‘Collateral Beauty’ which is just this with a happier ending and a bigger budget.

As for these supposed four letters, their existence and use are crammed into the final 15 minutes.

Director Polly Steele is competent but allowing Williams to adapt his own novel for the screen was a mistake; its faithful, I’m sure, but a better screenwriter could have made things more believable with changes.

Despite the material, there’s light in the performances, especially between Byrne and Bonham Carter, who are well-suited, and Skelly shines anytime she’s on screen, but O’Shea’s po-faced brow-furrowing Nicholas is too dour. You have to wonder what Ann sees in him, to be honest.

Come to ‘Four Letters of Love’ for the scenery but, for anything else, stick with the book.