Agnes Browne ** (1999, Anjelica Huston, Marion O’Dwyer, Niall O’Shea, Ciaran Owens, Ray Winstone, Arno Chevrier) – Classic Movie Review 10,938

Anjelica Huston directs herself in her 1999 comedy drama star vehicle Agnes Browne, with a screenplay by Brendan O’Carroll and John Goldsmith, based on the novel by John Goldsmith.

Anjelica Huston must have kissed the Blarney Stone when she went back to the old country to direct and star in this wilfully old-style, 1967 Dublin-set romantic drama that, for all its soppy blarney, does have its jolly moments. Huston manages some charm and appeal as the widder woman of the title, stuck with as many thousands of pounds of debts as she has kids – seven, ages two to 14 – on the unexpected death of her husband.

And Marion O’Dwyer joins her in a winsome double act as her market-trader buddy Marion Monks, whose terminal illness brings on the inevitable tears to the story.

Melodrama is on supply too, in the burly shape of a miscast Ray Winstone, who overplays his hand as Mr Billy, the loan shark she visits to pay for her old man’s funeral. Then there’s romance for Huston in the chunky form of French baker Pierre, played by Arno Chevrier, who must have been cast when Gérard Depardieu was busy.

Did we mention comedy? That too. The ladies break the bank to buy tickets to a Tom Jones concert, and up pops the real Tom as he is today in 1999 playing himself 33 years ago. Well, it’s as probable and whimsical as anything else in this rum old movie.

This is what Anjelica Huston said in 2011: ‘I find extreme characters irresistible’.

Also in the cast are Niall O’Shea, Roxanna Nic Liam [Roxanna Williams], Ciaran Owens, Mark Power, James Lappin, June Rodgers, Gareth O’Connor and Gerard McSorley.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,938

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