by The Great White Gypsy

After a lazy Sunday afternoon, I headed back downtown to SIFF to catch Neil Jordan’s new film, Ondine at Uptown Cinemas.

I feel like I owe Colin Farrell an apology. Maybe not as a person, but definitely as an actor. For some reason, I have an immediate and unavoidable inclination to call him a douchebag every time I see his face in a preview. But if you really think about his complete body of work, he’s been in infinitely more good films than shitty ones. The last couple years, he’s been finding his equilibrium, and getting back to both independent and Irish film. So I think it’s pretty cool that Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire) brought him on for his latest project.

Ondine is a grown-up fairytale loosely based on Celtic and Scandinavian mythology. Colin Farrell is a fisherman in Ireland. One day at sea, he pulls up his net to find a beautiful woman (Alicja Bachleda…oh my Jesus) drowned inside. He resuscitates her, but she claims to have complete memory loss and an intense fear of being seen by anyone but him. The next day, while his daughter Annie (Alison Barry with the best performance in the film) is going through dialysis for her failing kidney, he begins telling her about the woman under the guise of an old fairytale. She knows the woman is real, but she sticks to the “seal woman” mythology to keep the woman in their lives. But as fantasy and expectation confront each other, and the fisherman fights his own past demons, the film asks us two questions: “Is the myth real?” and “Does it matter either way?”

I’ve been a fan of Neil Jordan for a very long time now. Since I first saw The Crying Game, and my head exploded at the end (as a guy, that’s probably still the worse mindfuck/emotional manipulation in cinema history). He’s an incredible director who can both encapsulate and broaden a story with it’s characters and surroundings. And the fact that he hates working in Hollywood is, of course, a plus for me. So I may be a little biased, but I loved this film.

Again the master of manipulation, Jordan introduces the film as a fairytale. There’s not even a character introduction. When the first shot fades in, you barely have time to say “Once upon a time” before Farrell is pulling the woman out of a fishing net. With such a quick beginning, you are able to maintain your innate skepticism of any magic. Then doubts start creeping in. Even though nothing outrageous happens, you start thinking maybe it is supposed to be a fairy tale. At one point, I even found myself hoping the fairy tale was true, if only for the sake of the wheelchair-bound Annie. I won’t ruin the ending, but the blend of fact, fiction, myth, and realism added to the constantly changing and evolving cinematography created perhaps the best overall cinematic experience to ever come out of the Emerald Isle, and it proved to me that “feel good” endings don’t necessarily have to insult my cynical world view.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Made, Rabbit Proof Fence, Downloading Nancy) does his usual great job with the camera. Between his growth as an artist, and Jordan’s amazing eye, this film has just the right mix of intimate, scenic, and artsy shots to capture not only the characters and the story, but the geographic and historic backdrop of Ireland.

Colin Farrell does a great job. There, I said it. He’s a humble fisherman who continues to mourn the loss of his mother, and deal with his past. His name is Syracuse, but everyone calls him “Circus” because he was the town drunk until it cost him his marriage. He continues to correct people on his name, and you can tell the entire time that he wants so badly to get away from the stigma, but he has zero faith in luck or the reversal of fortune. This conflict causes him to be wary of the “mermaid” at first, and the closer the two get, the more adamant he is that something awful is going to happen. Bachleda, besides being eight kinds of half-Polish-half-Mexican hot, does an impressive job as the confused mythical creature. And, as I said, Alison Barry steals the show as the “way too mature for her age” kid who puts all the adults in their places. Neil Jordan regular Stephen Rea even shows up in a small yet important and amusing role as Farrell’s priest/stand in AA sponsor.

Whether it’s a fairytale the forces us to reevaluate reality, or a real story that makes us yearn for the idealistic fairytales of our youth, this is a fantastic film that doesn’t for even one frame try to be a fantastic film, and it succeeds.

FINAL GRADE: A-

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