GLASSLAND – The Review

There are a lot of good movies about alcoholism, that doesn’t make them easy to watch, by no means.  The very idea of making a movie, an entertainment, about addiction, of any kind, if it’s done with any amount of honesty, can make for a grueling experience to watch.

Just from memory you have The Lost Weekend, Leaving Las Vegas, Shakes the Clown, Everything Must Go and the more recent Blue Jasmine with a pill popping, wine swilling woman in deep denial at its center.

I’m sure there are many more, all of these are worthwhile films.  To this list you can definitely add Glassland, an independent movie from Ireland.  What irony that a movie about alcoholism, and a good one at that, would come from Ireland.  I’m Irish myself, and Ireland, much like countries such as Australia, Scotland, Japan and…the United States for that matter, seem to have drinking as part of the cultural fabric.  I did my share of drinking in my time, being Irish I still enjoy a bottle of Guinness now and again.

I don’t think I ever got as carried away as Jean (Toni Collette) the mother of John (Jack Reynor) who lives in Dublin and who has to be taken care of by John mostly every day.  John drives a cab and can barely make ends meet.  His Mother drinks so much he has to come home to a sink full of dirty dishes, a home not cleaned, a Mother lying in her own sick, most often passed out in someone else’s doorway.

John has friend, Shane, (Will Poulter) who also lives with his Mother, they play video games, try to rent a dvd and give a hard time to the clerks who point out they owe some late fees.  Shane has a son he never gets to see, John also has a brother Kit (Harry Nagle) who has Down’s Syndrome and lives in a group home.   The actor appears to really have Down’s Syndrome which makes his brief performance all the more astonishing.

Jean swears she does not hate Kit and then proceeds to tell John exactly every reason why she does hate him.  In a movie filled with painful moments Jean going on at some length about how she was repulsed and horrified when Kit was born, how she never wanted him and refuses to feel bad about it is incredibly painful, we want to look away but cannot.

In another painful moment John decides to drink with his Mother, to the tune of Tainted Love by Soft Cell, a bit obvious but it works. Collette nails the frustrating behavior of alcoholics who seem to think they are starring in their own movie and the drink is just a prop.  We also see the side of Jean that makes John care about her and try his best to save her.

Toni Collette is that good, John really does love his Mother, but knows, even before a counselor tells him, that his Mother is killing herself, one drink at a time.  John wants to get her into a rehab facility, but it costs money he does not have.

In a very mysterious turn of events John borrows money from “somebody” who directs him to “pick something up” in his cab.  This leads him into what appears to be human trafficking.  Asian women appear in his cab from time to time, he drives to a country house and is horrified by what he finds there.  The movie spares us any details but remains oblique about what exactly is going on.

Despite that Glassland is an excellent film about a difficult, painful subject that has been covered before.  Gerard Barrett’s direction is very straightforward.  He lets the actors carry the story and both Collette and Reynor have moments of outright desperation and suffering that are tough to see, but very much worth it.  The Irish accents are a bit difficult to understand at times but I would  give Glassland three  and a half out of four stars.