Four Letters of Love review: Irish ­actors who are unable to do Irish ­accents is becoming a worrying trend

Irish Independent

3 days ago

We're in the Dublin of the early 1970s, where a job in the civil service is a thing to be clutched tightly. But a shaft of sunlight falling on his desk has led to William having a major epiphany – he's going to pack up a few things and move to the west coast to be an itinerant landscape artist.
It's the kind of madly romantic gesture towards a meaningful existence that colours this long-mooted adaptation of Niall Williams's bestselling 1997 debut novel. The laws of poetry, love and art are nourishment enough for heart and soul and institutions such as Church and State only put a downer on things. Who could argue.
The decision leaves Nicholas and Bette in the lurch and fending for themselves while their breadwinner goes off on his elaborate flight of fancy.
Across the water from where William eventually sets up his easel, an island glistens off the western seaboard. It is home to the Gore household comprised of cultured, bohemian parents ­Margaret and Muiris (­Helena ­Bonham Carter and Gabriel Byrne), their breezy and beautiful daughter Isabel (Ann Skelly) and son Sean (Dónal Finn).
The Gore household is picture-­perfect, you might say, an image of Irishness in tune with ­dancing, red-haired cailíní, quaintly ­cluttered kitchen dressers, and wee drams to wet the throat beside an evening fire.
The Hibernian paradise undergoes a crack, however, when Sean is in an accident just as Isabel is readying herself to leave for convent school. She tears herself away nonetheless, only to fall foul of the nuns and run away with a roguish cad (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo).
Isabel and Nicholas; Nicholas and Isabel. One is embarking on an adventure into early adulthood, romance and self-discovery, the other still reeling from the fallout to his family life by his father's sudden wilful abandonment. Their situations couldn't be less alike and yet they are, we're assured, bound together.
Director Polly Steele's take on the novel – adapted for the screen by the Clare-based author himself – presents the two strands as being on a parallel journey towards a head-spinning (and predictably gooey) inevitability.
Their pre-destination is signposted with the subtlety of a billboard until Nicholas embarks west in search of William and catches a glimpse of Isabel on the local bus and the direction of his young life suddenly shifts.
The lush prophesying sweep of the narrative, the coincidences and serendipities and fateful ­mishaps, will be too sickly sweet for viewers of a cynical bent.
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Add to this the way it ­tiptoes along the fringes of 'stage Irish', flirting with a version of pre-1990s Ireland (pretty, cute, benign and sweetly befuddled), and Four Letters of Love's setting is almost outlandish when watched from seats on this island.
And that might just be the whole idea. Right around the ­moment that you scratch your head at the shaky tenor of ­Brosnan's brogue (Irish ­actors who are unable to do Irish ­accents is becoming a worrying trend), a suspicion strikes you. Much like its source novel, Steele's film might also speak to a pre-destination: that of a love affair with cinemagoers beyond these shores.
Sweeter than The Banshees of Inisherin, more fanciful than Brooklyn, this is about as ­unashamedly sentimental and ­syrupy as it gets, and those in search of a gentle, easy-on-the-eyes swoon will ­forgive the odd accent wobble, the patches of abrupt editing, or the clumsy ­dialogue replacement splices.
Cinematographer Damien Elliottt and production designer John Leslie get that fantasy-­realist netherworld just right. Cast members do what they must – Brosnan gives enigmatic scans of the wind-swept horizon; Byrne hunches over love poems and grunts good-naturedly at the youthful carry-on.
Regardless of what region this film is experienced in, the star of the show is Bonham Carter, whose brilliant quips stop the whole thing from disappearing up its own Blarney. For an outing that applies such a honeyed filter to the Irish condition, it is her character's cranky benevolence and perfectly timed eye-rolls that might just be the most authentic national traits on show here.