Ondine: Review By harveycritic

ONDINE

Magnolia Pictures

Reviewed for MovieWeb by Harvey Karten

Grade: C

Directed By: Neil Jordan

Written By: Neil Jordan

Cast: Colin Farrell, Stephen Rea, Alicja Bachleda, Derva Kirwan, Alison Barry

Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 4/8/10

Opens: April 28, 2010

Green is the new black. Unless you stay in bed all day, you can't fail to see at least one message that encourages you to put bottles in the left-hand bin and paper and cardboard in the right. One bathroom has a poster, "Don't flush unless it's number two." A few months ago a doc*mentary movie focused on a man who was determined to be so green that he consumed goods for a year with only a single plastic bag to dispose of.

There is also the literal color: mention Ireland and the first word that may come to mind is "green." It's the Emerald Isle whose national hue is determined by its torrential rain. In Neil Jordan's "Ondine," ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle goes wholly overboard by showing us a rural area on Ireland's west coast that's not only lush with vegetation but is now overlaid with a off-putting chartreuse look on the lenses of his cameras. In fact there is only one scene in the movie, one that involves a pair of helicopters chasing bandits, that dispenses with the grainy green look on the lens filters. What's more, the celluloid is on the dark side, caused partly by the ever-present mist and partially by technical choices.

Maybe the tech flaws could be forgiven if the story would capture our imagination, what with the tone of magic realism and the way that writer-director wants to keep us guessing about the identity of the title character. However, the action is slow, the change in the final third that casts the village into a crime scene c*m spectacular auto accident, is no help either.

Ondine (Alicja Bachleda) is the name of a woman who is literally fished out of the water by Syracuse (Colin Farrell), one who gives the fisherman and his 11-year-odl daughter Annie (Alison Barry) the impression that she is a selkie, which is part seal and part human but who is disguising the anything that might conjure up thoughts of anything but a raving beauty. After being pulled out of the water, she appears indifferent to hostile, which is presumably what a fish might be in such a condition, and refuses to be seen anyone in the town. Whether she is a selkie or a human is not important. Her role is serve the plot as a catalyst for the redemption of a lonely, formerly alcoholic fisherman, divorced from his wife, Maura (Derva Kirwan), who has been granted custody of their daughter. Particularly poignant is that young Annie is confined to a wheelchair, bogged down by a failing kidney that requires her to have dialysis several times a week in a mobile van. Annie is also wise beyond her years, speaks like an adult, and tends to become irritating with her cutesy bon mots. When Syracuse is in a particularly eager need for redemption, he visits the local priest (Stephen Rea) in the confession booth, where he nonetheless admits that the man of the cloth is not likely to see his potential parishioner at Mass, not any time soon.

Neil Jordan's dialogue is nothing to write home about and is sometimes muffled, though Colin Farrell's heavily accented prose is not difficult to understand. The most romantic thing one can say about the movie is that in real life, Colin Farrell met Alicja Bachleda on the set of "Ondine." Bachleda is a Polish actress born in Tampico, Mexico who studied for the trade in Krakow, who speaks Spanish, Polish and English. She and Farrell became partners and last October were blessed with a son.

Rated PG-13. 103 minutes. © 2010 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online