Richard Karlsen seems to have it all. The only son of wealthy indulgent parents, complete with a holiday home on the beach, this handsome and very popular young Rugby Captain is about to have one long hot summer break with his mates after just finishing High School and before starting University in the autumn. The one thing he is missing is the perfect girlfriend, and he knows he has found her when he meets Lara. The snag is that she is dating one of his team mates, but after a clandestine date at the beach house, Lara agrees to break up with Connor so that she and Richard can go steady.
The break up doesn’t go too well, and for the next few weeks whenever the boys run across each other in the close South Dublin suburb they live in, there is a great deal of tension in the air. One Saturday night it festers into a fight between the two, and although Richard’s best friends pitch in, it’s Richard himself that inflicts the final blows.
Next day Richard wakes up to see the news on TV that Connor has died and the Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward. The last time Richard saw him, Connor was on his feet and stumbling away but it doesn’t look good for him and His two best friends agree to giving him an alibi, but only on the condition that they will never want to see him again. It’s the same price that an angry Lara insists on too.
Richard eventually confesses to his father who makes him go lay low at the beach house whilst the police continue with the investigation, but when he returns back to town for Connor’s funeral it’s very obvious that he is so close to breaking. When Connor’s very distraught mother rants in the Church that no-one has come forward so that can she really know how her son died that night, Richard knows he needs to do the right thing.
What that is we will never really know as in this deftly woven drama we are deliberately left hanging. This is no ordinary teen coming of age tale but the story of how one privileged middle-class youth must confront and deal with a tragic incident, and how he does so, will surely shape his life ahead. This engrossing very contemporary Irish movie is filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson’s third narrative, and is from a script by Malcolm Campbell (‘TV’s Shameless) and based very loosely on a true story.
Young Irish actor Jack Reynor impressively fixates you as Richard the Rugby Captain who is always far less confident than what his friends assume, and who is prone to a great deal of self-doubt even before the ‘incident’. It is a stunning subtle performance and elevates this to a much more entertaining movie than I would have ever expected.
★★★★★★★★
