Life's a Breeze

source: Life's a Breeze

In Dublin, embarrassed teen Emma is told to accompany her grandmother Nan (Fionnula Flanagan) who lives with her idiot son Colm. It's actually an excuse for her adult kids to come and renovate her home without her knowledge. They throw out much of her belongings including her mattress. Unbeknownst to them, she had hidden her life savings in the mattress which amounts to about a million euros. This is a black comedy Irish indie. I guess black comedy and Irish indie amount to the same thing. It's an endearing dysfunctional family headed by the magnetic Fionnula Flanagan. She does everything with little more than a look. She controls this movie from the sidelines. Additional praise for Pat Shortt who allows himself to be the butt of the joke. There is some heart, some humor, and some pathos. The running time is a little short and I wonder if the third act could handle another five minutes. This is fun little indie.

"Life's a breeze" tells the story of an elderly woman with a lot of children that aren't really able to stand on their own feet. When they want to do her a favor and give her house a make-over, they accidentally throw out almost a million euros in an old mattress. From there a wild chase throughout the city begins to get back the money. In general the film looks like one of those independent productions that center around a dysfunctional family but still manages to find the beauty within. However, the beginning as well as the ending come somewhat surprising and leave the film without a proper frame. Additionally, I find it kind of in-consequent to base a movie with the depicted characters on a favor that would cost them a huge amount of money that they obviously can't have in their situation. Surely, there are a lot of beautiful moments and there is some wisdom in the message, still the last bit is missing that makes this movie something really special. All in all this is not a story you've never heard before but it is definitely worth a watch. If you're looking for a nice little movie that leaves you in a somewhat melancholic mood, this could be your choice.

When her family throws out her old stuff away and proudly presents her a new bed Nan tells them that the old mattress they had thrown away had nearly 1 million euros in it. This makes them go on a quest to find the mattress. The movie is pretty hilarious and reminds me of the old classic It's a mad mad mad world. Only in this case the family looks for the mattress together, even though they are extremely dysfunctional and greedy (but then who wouldn't be knowing that there is a million somewhere you can soon use). The characters are very colorful and present us with many hilarious scenes. Like the lottery scene for example. Besides that there is this great connection between Nan and her granddaughter Emma. A recommendable movie. It is pretty hilarious to watch it wondering if they will find the mattress, where they will find it and if there is really all that money in it.

I watched this in NetFlix where it was labeled as a "comedy", I needed a few laughs (I'd just watched "Interstellar" the day before, if you have not yet spare yourself READ MY REVIEW on it). But so, about this movie, it was a letdown, the whole family and their lives and attitudes are depressing, one or two moments in which I smiled slightly but that was it. The characters and the story COULD have made for a very funny comedy, but they so wanted to show the lack of perspective of the poor that it never caught on as comedy. The moment when the family hires a * for grandma's birthday was simply gross in my view. This is DRAMA, not comedy, and a rather sad tale at that.

Enjoyed this movie immensely. I agree that some scenes were somewhat irrelevant. Pity there is not much bio on Emma on IMDb. Her last part about crediting Colm with finding the mattress is a beautiful act of kindness and clever psychology. I've been to Dublin twice, once in 1958 and again in 2006. The contrast and change between these two years in terms of scruffiness and graffiti is so disappointing. Nevertheless, there are many points in the city's favour and I would like to visit again. Like many Irish films, the dialogue (Irish accent) can be difficult to follow for our American cousins and those who do not have English mother tongue. Finally, I am curious as to what part of the movie was filmed in Sweden and why?

I got this movie because I usually enjoy films of this genre. I think what bothers me most about recent Irish and/or English and/or Australian films is the utter passivity of the people depicted. I always find myself screaming, grow a pair already! Like wise with this one. I cannot say that I liked any character depicted, particularly the way in which being on welfare is taken with such a blasé attitude by all of the adults - uh, men in particular. Greedy, freeloaders, the whole lot and that is supposed to provide humor? And then you have the matriarch telling the granddaughter that essentially religion is hogwash which seems more typical of the English than the Irish. Were I and my grown siblings looking for a purported million bucks inadvertently thrown away, I think we would be a bit more aggressive when faced with opposition from opportunistic outsiders. Not these guys. Wimps, the whole lot. And for the granddaughter to throw her lowlife uncle a bone at the end was just too much. And where did all of the skepticism come from towards the mother not to mention their quickness to believe everything they heard from outsiders? Now, THAT I can identify with. A complete thumbs down from me. If this is what passes as sweet, sentimental, feel-good comedy, then I will take a pass. The only people I can see liking this film are people who are just like these characters and thus have some sort of weird empathy for them.

"Little Miss Sunshine", "Chocolat", maybe even the Japanese masterpiece "Kikujiro", and "Life's a Breeze". These are all excellent films that tell an entertaining story involving 3 generations, focusing mostly on the odd relationship between a 1st generation grandparent figure & a third generation teenager. In each case, the plot isn't what you'd call nail biting suspense, and in fact the stories themselves are pretty mundane. But the payoff is in the interesting views between old & young. By the way, if you haven't read the DVD back cover yet, then DON'T. It uses some phrases which I consider to be major spo!lers. Since the story itself is pretty simple, you'll probably have a better time if you know nothing about it. Let's just say it's about an urban adventure, set in Ireland (Dublin I assume?), involving a family of weirdos. The humor is pretty tame, no real laugh-out-loud zingers, but the entire presentation is so witty and light hearted that you'll probably find yourself with a good smirk planted on your face throughout. A subtle bonus is the way this film shows us the underbelly of Irish society, I'm talking about poor families, garbage dumps (literally), homeless hangouts and other unglamorous facets of life. And yet it doesn't hit you over the head with some preachy social message about it all. The scenes simply provide a contextual backdrop behind the story. Certainly a different approach than your typical glossy Hollywood fare. Although all performances were great, I'd say the show stealer was newcomer Kelly Thornton who was 15 years old during production. Apparently she was discovered while she was walking down the street. Director Lance Daly has a flair for finding "unprofessional" young actors and eliciting the greatest performances out of them. He did the same with his two young leads in his excellent 2008 film "Kisses" about two young runaways living on the streets of Dublin. Here he does the same with his young star, and the result is a genuine performance as only a non-actor can do. If you're a fan of the films I mentioned above, or any coming-of-age comedy dramas like "The Squid and the Whale" or another gem I recently saw called "The Way, Way Back", then don't hesitate to check this out. And recycle your trash! (watch the movie and you'll see what I mean)

This is a fun film which we chose to watch because we enjoy films shot in the UK and because we're huge fans of Fionnula Flanagan. Once again, she stole the show (and saved it) along with Kelly Thornton who plays her granddaughter. We LOVED that Fionnula's character didn't do any shouting, which annoyingly seems to be the norm these days in most shows. ... We would have enjoyed the whole story a bit more (and we'd be able to recommend it to more people) if the vocabulary hadn't been foul and if the dipwads of the story had had more of a comeuppance. Otherwise, it delivered a good story with great cinematography, fun moments, poignant moments, and the annoying characters didn't get so annoying that the show was no longer entertainment, which, again, happens much too often in film today.

I just finished watching this movie and I have to say that it's not always the movies with a high budget that are the best. I enjoyed this Irish dramady. The filming was simple but effective, no need for any spectacular scenes, just day-to-day shots out of the suburbs. All actors did a fine job, especially the grandmother played by Fionnula Flanagan and her grand-daughter Emma played by Kelly Thornton. The search for the missing money, the disbelief of nan's story, the different relationships between the family members all made it a nice movie to watch. There was enough subtle humor to bring a smile on my face every now and then. Certainly worth a watch.