Rory O'Shea Was Here
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Movie Reviews of Rory O'Shea Was Here
Movie Review: "Come on, lets go out!"
Summary: 4 Stars
There's some fine acting in Rory O'Shea was Here, a rather predictable, but insightful melodrama from Irish Director Damien O'Donnell. While O'Donnell and screenwriter Jeffrey Caine faithfully adhere to the bylaws of message-based drama, quickly plunging us from triumph to tragedy, at times they seem far too intent on laboring the point. Yes, even disabled people have rights too.
We first meet Rory (James McAvoy) at Dublin's Carrigmore Home for the Disabled. He has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle-deteriorating degenerative disease that has confined him to a wheelchair with the use of only two fingers and partial mobility of his head. His disability, however, has not affected his quick wit, his penchant for crude jokes, or his larrikin-like behaviour.
Rory forms an unlikely friendship with the clean-cut Michael Connolly (Steven Robertson), a Carrigmore lifer who is stricken with cerebral palsy. Strangely, Rory is the only one who can actually understand Michael's severely impaired speech, much to the chagrin of Michael's caretakers.
Michael is the son of wealthy and successful judge who institutionalized him as a young boy. He's basically been left on his own to fend for himself, but is monitored by the Home's repressive superintendent (a wonderful Brenda Fricker). Frustrated with the limitations of the institution, Rory and Michael hatch a plan to carve out independent lives for themselves.
Rory convinces Michael to apply for a personal-assistance scholarship that, once granted, would allow him and Rory to move into their own flat. Once this is approved, Rory blackmails
Michael's estranged father into not only bankrolling a custom-made, fully accessible apartment for them, but also paying for some full time help. Help comes in the form of Siobhan (Romola Garai), a beautiful blond supermarket clerk. She doesn't have much experience with disabled people, but she has a big heart.
Soon the boys are having a great time: they manage to get into a discothèque, they frolic in the park, Rory races the local kids via his wheelchair, and Michael even develops an attraction to their sexy blond companion. It's all pretty predictable and formulaic, playing out like a politically correct melodrama.
The strength of the film, however, is in showing the difficulties of daily living for these two mismatched boys and the unflappable strengths of their respective spirits. From cleaning their teeth to going to bed, their everyday trials and tribulations lend the film a feeling of troubling authenticity.
At times, the proceedings threaten to get cloying and sappy, but the gritty realism and the powerful, realistic performances, particularly from Steven Robertson, more than make up for the story's shortcomings. Mike Leonard June 05.
Movie Review: Friendship, Frustration & Independence, Wheelchair-style.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Rory O'Shea Was Here" is an optimistic yarn about living to the fullest of one's abilities with disabilities that manages to transcend clichés and be genuinely entertaining. Rory O'Shea (James McAvoy) is a roguish young man confined to a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy, his voice and two fingers his only functioning faculties. When he goes to live at Carrigmore Home for the Disabled, a pretty and pleasant institution, unfortunately without opportunity for self-determination or anything even mildly exciting, his boisterous personality shakes the place up a bit. Michael Conolly (Steven Robertson), who is also wheelchair-bound and suffers from severe speech impairment due to cerebral palsy, is resigned to the monotony and confinement in the home. But when he finds that Rory can understand his speech, Michael seeks his friendship, and Rory's quest to live independently rubs off on him.
"Rory O'Shea Was Here" succeeds because it's honest. Rory and Michael are real, flawed, and lively personalities. The film doesn't romanticize disability or claim that there is anything enriching about it. It doesn't hesitate to laugh at the everyday challenges of being disabled either. And the cast is great. Neither James McAvoy or Steven Robertson are disabled, but they work very hard to hide that fact. Robertson's body language and his barely intelligible speech are amazing. McAvoy makes Rory lovable, charismatic, and frustrating. Romola Garai is a chameleon in her role as Siobhan, the men's personal assistant. I'm used to seeing her in period films and didn't recognize her, but she's terrific. This isn't really a film about people overcoming obstacles or living with them. It's about life's frustrations, which are easily taken out on someone else in a home, but can be a good deal more complicated where there is no one to blame. Like so many Irish films, "Rory O'Shea Was Here" has a vitality and unsentimental humor that makes it a pleasure to watch.
The DVD (Universal 2005 release): There are 3 deleted scenes, including an alternate ending, and 1 extended scene. Captions are available in English. Subtitles are available in Spanish and French.
Movie Review: Inside I'm Dancing
Summary: 4 Stars
Rory O'Shea comes into the Carrigmore home for the disabled spike haired and foul mouthed. While his first words are a little crude, I was immediately charmed and couldn't help but laugh and be entertained! He has Muscular Dystrophy and enough personality and spirit for 10 men.
Michael Connolly is already a permanent fixture in the home. Having Cerebral Palsy absolutely no one can understand him when he talks. The home tries to have him point to letters on a card, but that just frustrates everyone because it is so time consuming. Michael continues to try to talk to people and when Rory hears and understands him, Michael's relief and excitement are palpable. And so starts the friendship.
Rory is a free spirit and longs to be 'normal' his biggest dream is to pass the Independent living application, but when he is rejected again due to his reckless behavior all seems lost. Luckily Michael is as smart as he is loving and he comes to the rescue, gaining independent living for the two of them. Free from the home and living on their own, they employ the beautiful and inexperienced Siobhan as their PA.
This is probably the most emotional movie I have ever seen, it touches on about every feeling a human can have. I have never been in a wheelchair or handicapped in any way (knock on wood) so it is impossible to say I could relate to this movie, but I definitely could sympathize and feel their frustrations. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the mind but not the body to do everything you want. These actors were so good I really thought that they were handicapped. I thought they got real people with Cerebral Palsy and Muscular Dystrophy to play the roles.
This is both a heartwarming and heartbreaking story. They go through so much together and as two very opposite men they learn a lot, too. I laughed as much as I cried and this was at least a one box of tissue movie. This was a great story and a great movie with fantastic actors.
Movie Review: Funny as hell, and beautifully moving
Summary: 4 Stars
A "little" movie definitely worth watching. The cast are all pros, and while the story is a bit predictable at the end, it is most definitely worth your time. 'Nough said.Movie Review: Two Guys, a Girl, Two Chairs, One Bar of Soap
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not surprised the movie is getting all sorts of five star reviews. It's sort of cheesy, that's what they're not telling you, but the star power is such that Romola Garai and James McAvoy make it worth watching. Steven Robertson is an acquired taste and I got sick of him right away. Even when Siobhan (Romola Garai) gave him a new haircut, he didn't improve in my eyes, and I think looking back offering him that "regular boy's" haircut was a mistake, because it encouraged him to think that, like Pinocchio, he could become a real boy. Tragically because she was so nice to him, in her understated way, he began to misread her affectionate ways for signs of real love and then--
SPOILERS AHEAD
He went off the trolley at a party when he saw her dancing with a non-disabled boyfriend. How banal is the movie? I'll tell you how banal--they had to go make it a costume party, for no reason at all! They're always doing that in the movies, a sign of not believing enough in their own material. It can't just be a regular party party, that's not pictorial enough, they have to put everyone in costumes. So you get McEvoy dressed up as Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean and two extras cast for their Laurel and Hardy act, it's all horribly dire, especially in the face of the fact that this social occasion represents the first time that the central trio's "Jules et Jim" romance is put to the test. So it's supposed to be the turning point of the whole drama, but how can we pay attention, when the screen is cluttered with Cleopatras and French maids.
I don't know about the politics of casting non-disabled actors to fill those wheelchairs, but the actors were up to the challenge. When McEvoy asks Robertson if he gets excited when Garai gives him his nightly spongebath, the two men play it like it was the first time they ever got to be frank in the movies. Their exhilaration is contagious, too bad the whole movie had to succumb to the Ali MacGraw level of script predictability.