Film Reviews

Snap

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Mick Lally
• Details: Ireland / 90mins (16).

There's no denying that Amy Huberman deserved her Best Actress nod at the IFTAs for Rewind, but if Aisling O'Sullivan was nominated she would have walked away with it. O'Sullivan is electric as the acerbic Sharon in Carmel Winters' Snap, another top-notch movie from an Irish filmmaker making their debut. It seems that Irish movies have finally caught the Irish documentary buzz - we're on a great run at the moment after As If I Am Not There, Between The Canals, Wake Wood and Rewind.
Single mother of one Sharon (O'Sullivan - Raw, The Clinic) has invited a documentary crew into her house to 'set the record straight'. It's obvious from the off that she doesn't want them to be there but the caustic Sharon knows that it's a necessary evil. At first it's not clear what she has to clear up, but soon it's revealed that three years ago her teenage son, the disturbed Stephen (Moran), kidnapped a toddler and kept him captive for five days in his grandfather's house. The media circus that followed turned its ire on Sharon, who retreated into depression.
Half mockumentary (Sharon's opinions on the debacle are taken from her interviews with the documentary's director) and half straight drama (the flashbacks to kidnapping), Snap builds to a powerful but twisty climax that encourages one to rethink what they've just witnessed. In adapting her own one-woman play, Carmel Winters plays with the audience's pity for Sharon and Stephen, with compassion consistently chopping and changing as new information surfaces. At first we're asked to detest Sharon - with her acid tongue, she isn't pleasant to be around - but slowly we learn more about her and why she's turned into this bitter, frustrated figure who spits nothing but bile.
Carmel Winters' confident direction is evident throughout but O' Sullivan owns Snap with her nervous, angry turn. Eileen Walsh (Eden) turns up as O'Sullivan's dope-smoking pal while the late Mick Lally, in his last role, delivers a performance of pained humility as the loner drunk O'Sullivan picks up in a Take Away. Marvellous stuff.

Review by Gavin Burke