BEFORE: It's already time for me to start planning my annual trip to San Diego Comic-Con, I just booked my flight and started looking at hotels. I'm later than usual on this, since I like to have my hotel locked down by November, but the hostel I've been staying at for 5 years may be closing, so they're not taking reservations for July, at least not yet. Sure, that place is kind of dumpy, so this may be a blessing in disguise - but I'll never find another place 3 blocks from the convention center at that price, so now I've got to convince my boss to increase my hotel budget.
I love San Diego, but it's a small city masquerading as a large one, so as a result I've come to realize that it's designed all wrong. (What moron put a convention center next to a freeway and two sets of train tracks, with no pedestrian bridge? It's like nobody realized that thousands of people need to enter the convention center every day on foot...) I did learn how to use the trolley system two years ago, so I figured I could find a cheap hotel anywhere along the trolley line and ride to the convention center each day. Nope, that's not an option, because I looked at nearly every stop on all three trolley lines with Google maps, and couldn't spot a hotel in the vicinity of any of them. It's like no one thought that maybe someone from out of town would also need to get around somehow - see what I mean?
I've got to rely on indirect linking tonight - Jason Patric from "Your Friends & Neighbors" was also in "Sleepers" with Minnie Driver (last seen in "Goldeneye"). It's not ideal, but I've got only two or three indirect links in February, and once I get past those, actors will carry over in a cascade that will take me to the end of the month.
THE PLOT: Set in 1950's Ireland, the movie focuses on Benny Hogan and her best friend, Eve Malone as they enter student life at University College, Dublin. Here Benny and Eve reunite with their childhood friend, the ice-cool Nan Mahon, the 'college belle'.
AFTER: This film had charm to spare, though maybe it just appeared more charming to me after watching "Your Friends & Neighbors", which was so abrasive. I couldn't abide the opening sequence, where we see the three young girls and Benny narrates it all with, "There I am - Benny." Nobody talks like that, saying their name over and over as exposition - but then, I guess most people don't narrate their memories for an audience. And why did she say, "We were inseparable," when one of the girls moved away shortly after that? That's not what "inseparable" means....
This is a peek at young love in a Catholic society, where teens had to balance their desires with their religious training - remember, Catholics somehow got it in their heads that chastity means holiness, even though the teachings of Jesus encouraged people to "be fruitful and multiply". And if there were a God, why would he design humans with anatomy or feelings that he didn't want them to use? It's so easy to trip religious people up with their own twisted logic.
Benny's got the classic problem where she's in love with one man, but her parents are encouraging her to marry another, for business reasons. And the year this takes place is crucial, because before the 1950's, that decision probably would have gone one way, and afterwards women were probably more likely to marry for love than money - most of them, anyway. It's weird, though, that her parents would allow her to go to university, but also be working to marry her off - do they want her to be independent or not?
It's a slow build and I wondered if it was ever going to get somewhere interesting - eventually it did, and as things got complicated, then sorted themselves out, it almost felt like some scenes were missing, as there's a lot of people learning what's really going on, but this is not always seen on camera.
Also starring Chris O'Donnell (last seen in "The Three Musketeers"), Saffron Burrows (last seen in "Troy"), Geraldine O'Rawe, Alan Cumming (last seen in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"), Colin Firth (last seen in "Love Actually"), Ciaran Hinds (last heard in "Frozen"), Aidan Gillen.
RATING: 5 out of 10 rugby matches
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