 |
BY KIM MORGAN |
|
Dancing at Lughnasa Rated PG Opens Friday, Dec. 25 Some things were never meant to be movies. Some things were never meant to be plays. And some things were meant for the small screen only. Such is the case with Dancing at Lughnasa, the latest award-winning stage play to be adapted for the big screen. Playing more like a Hallmark Hall of Fame special starring Diane Lane than a wide-release Oscar contender starring Meryl Streep, director Pat O'Connor's Dancing at Lughnasa is a turgid piece of filmmaking. The only excitement in this film comes in finding similarities to Footloose, the 1984 movie that, ironically, has just been adapted to the stage and is currently playing on Broadway. Once again, all roads lead to Kevin Bacon. Meryl Streep (The River Wild, also starring Kevin Bacon) stars as Kate Mundy, the oldest of five sisters who live under one roof in a small Irish village in the 1930s. Kate is the town's prim and proper schoolteacher (people call her a "gander" behind her back) who, steeped in her prissy spinsterhood, is against all things pagan. Dancing, of course, is not allowed. Kate's siblings are against nixing dancing and express their opposition. The other four lonely and unmarried sisters include Agnes (Brid Brennan), the quiet and mousy one; Maggie (Kathy Burke), the lively, gossipy one; Rose (Sophie Thompson), the slow, slightly touched one; and Christina (Catherine McCormack), the pretty one. Though Rose caused tongues around town to wag when she had an affair with a married man, it is Christina who shamed the family into seclusion when she had a son, Michael (Darrell Johnston), out of wedlock. Despite the controversy surrounding his birth, young Michael (who narrates the story as an adult) receives extra love from all of his aunts. Changes take place one summer when the sisters' older brother Jack (Michael Gambon) returns from Africa, where he has spent years as a missionary. Jack is seen as an outsider by the Irish Catholic clergy--his mind appears to be slipping, and the church elders think he's been overly influenced by the natives. After Jack's arrival, Michael's absentee father Gerry (Rhys Ifans) arrives, causing even more upheaval in the sisters' lives. Gerry works his way back into Michael's life through dancing, hot rodding on his motorcycle and all-around rakishness. After stirring things up, he reveals that he will again be leaving--this time to join the International Brigade to fight Franco in Spain. The sisters' lives unravel even more when Kate is fired from her teaching position and their only other source of income, creating hand-woven clothing, is threatened by a woolens factory slated to open in town. To add to this mix, there is the drama over the annual Harvest Dance. Kate, who rules the roost, won't let her sisters go to the function. "You do not dance!" she bellows. This is when the film loses its grip. Instead of telling a touching story about the hardships of Irish living, the picture focuses more on unfancy footwork. We end up following the inspirations of Gerry, who--like Bacon in Footloose--shows up with his dancing shoes on. He intends to teach these broads how to move. For this reason and many others, the film veers into schmaltzy absurdity. Though the movie is titled for the celebration of Lugh, the Celtic goddess of music and light, its musical moments just don't jell with the rest of the story. Music and celebration are supposed to represent the freedom that these women could have from their depressing lives, but the movie doesn't contains a single music scene in which we truly feel joy. Instead, it is a boring downer. The actors are all great, but the film falls flat because of O'Connor's
skimpy, corny adaptation. In Dancing we want a real pagan dance
scene equal to the beautiful final moment of Zorba the Greek,
where Anthony Quinn teaches Alan Bates his smooth moves. We'd even take
a dance similar to Sandy Dennis' in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,
where she drunkenly blurts out: "I dance like the wind!" Heck, we'd
even take Kevin Bacon dancing to Kenny Loggins.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
