52 Films by Women Vol 7. 1. JOYRIDE (Director: Emer Reynolds)
The casting of
Olivia Colman in Irish editor-turned-documentary-maker-turned-feature film
director Emer Reynolds’ Joyride is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing
because the Best Actress Academy Award winner gives the film a marquee value it
otherwise would not have had – it is playing for a second week at my local
multiplex, which for a low-budget Irish road movie is practically unheard.
Curse because Colman is neither Irish nor the right age for the part she is
playing. To accept the 48-year-old Colman as a new mother is a bit of a
stretch. You just have to go with it.
However, there are scenes when her character Joy tries to breast feed –
the film doesn’t shy away from nipples put to natural use – and you are acutely
aware that a maternal stand-in was used. Showing female breasts in unheard of
in Irish cinema. I sensed that Reynolds was making a political point. Breast
feeding in public should not be outlawed, although a mother may prefer privacy.
Prudes and conservatives should get used to it.
Written by Ailbhe
Keogan, Joyride is stolen by Charlie Reid as Mully, a twelve-year-old
thief who steals a taxi with a mother and baby in it. It is a highly contrived
set up – Mully has to make a quick getaway having snatched a wad of banknotes
from his da (Lochlann O'Mearáin) who wants to take money raised for charity in
his late wife’s name to pay off a gambling debt. Mully misses his mother, who
died from cancer. All he has of her in physical terms is her lipstick. Mully’s
mother used to plant a kiss on his cheek while he slept giving him what he
considered to be a pleasant surprise in the morning. Other boys might disagree.
Mully is the kind of kid who yells at adults, smokes, drives and occasionally
crashes a car. In other words, an obvious referral to social services. His
father’s one defence as a parent is that he kept the boy at home, which isn’t
much of a virtue.
Colman’s character,
Joy, is the pun we never wanted. She’s an alcoholic lawyer – Mully refers to
her as ‘gin and tonic’ – who doesn’t know who the father of her recently born
child is. To be fair, she doesn’t want to know. Joy wants to pass on her unnamed
baby daughter to her friend, Angela (Aislin McGuckin) who is unable to
conceive. Her plan is: give birth, gift child to friend, fly to Lanzarotte. We
wonder whether she has a job to return to. The plotting of the film is so thin
that the only drama is whether Joy can learn to love of her child and, if so,
what the implications might be. This aspect of the film doesn’t get much
running time.
The film is about
the fractious relationship between Joy and Mully. While he calls the shots, she
is an assertive adult. We root for Mully to a point, showcased in an early
scene singing ‘Minnie the Moocher’ at his late mother’s fund raiser. Only when
he sees his father appear to be sneaking off does he leave the stage. Reid is
quite the performer and when he grabs the cash, offended by his father’s
intention, we root for him. He is extremely disrespectful towards Joy but loves
babies. His sentimental streak and practical advice offsets the more disruptive
aspects of her personality. Any older, he could be genuinely threatening.
Colman is something
of an English national treasure – a Dame Judi Dench in waiting. Having won an
Oscar playing Queen Anne in the cruel menage a trois film, The Favourite, she took over the role of Queen Elizabeth
II from Claire Foy in the Netflix series, The Crown. The
Covid-19 outbreak to some extent has stopped Colman from taking any number of
roles in Hollywood films or HBO series and she hasn’t yet done a Marvel movie.
However, she continues to appear in British movies and television series,
eschewing her earning potential. In her signature roles, of which this almost
one, she is simultaneously erratic and determined, truthful yet unreliable,
capable of a pitiable look and a withering glare. Her character Leda’s theft of
a child’s doll defined Colman’s performance in The Lost Daughter, a
spiteful act that Leda came to reconsider. Her characters – Queen Elizabeth
aside - go to the brink and back again.
As Joy, Colman does
indeed go to the brink and back again, though in the service of a film that
wobbles between comedy and drama. Documentary makers have a predilection
towards the latter and labour the former. Reynolds joins a group of noted
documentary filmmakers - Errol Morris, Michael Moore and Alex Gibney - whose
forays into storytelling with actors (respectively, The Dark Wind, Canadian Bacon and The Looming Tower)
produced mixed results.
The plot moves from point A to point why? Mully drives the
cab to a scrapyard where he takes possession of a car that has his jacket in
it. What is his jacket doing there? The inference is that the scrapyard is
somehow safer for his private stuff than his own home, though this hardly makes
sense. At any rate, Mully is able to start up any number of vehicles –
including the one with his jacket in it – without a key, taking Joy and the
baby with him to apparently prevent her from reporting him to the police for
kidnapping. He wants to go elsewhere. She wants the ferry, a drop-off point,
and the airport. In the course of their shenanigans – great word – they go to
fetch petrol after catching a lift, slip through a roadblock, only for Mully
(locked in the car boot) to start screaming as a spider crawls up his leg,
elude the police car in pursuit and miss the ferry. Mully helps Joy feed her
child with the bottles of formula she has prepared in advance. He also rings
his father and locks himself in the toilet. Joy tries to tempt him out by
reading from the menu; it is the only moment where the comedy lands.
Joy is forced to breastfeed her child at the port; a kindly
gentleman allows her into his hut. Mully also re-thinks his decision to turn
himself over to his father. They take the ferry, though Mully is quite rude
about the jacket offered to him by a kindly ferryman who gives him his flute.
Music plays some part in the drama, though I was
disappointed that ‘Minnie the Moocher’ was reprised in the car so soon after
Mully’s scene-stealing performance – ‘I hate that stupid song’, he curses. As
the car moves away down a country road, we hear ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ by
Middle of the Road as the camera cranes up and we see a chirping robin. This
moment is on-the-nose on so many levels that simply grimacing whilst witnessing
it isn’t enough.
Why does Joy not want to raise a child? At a particular
distressed moment in her life, Joy’s mother took Joy to the beach. Joy was
allowed to go for a swim and started to struggle against the tide. As she
called out and frantically attempted to stay afloat, she saw her mother look
left and right as if tempted to abandon her child. Joy was rescued but her
mother’s hesitancy stayed with her. In short, Joy does not want to become her
mother.
So damned if Mully’s father catches up with them. Damned if
they pretend to be a family for the night at a hotel. Damned if Mully’s father
makes a pass at Joy after he returns from the pub. Damned if this turns Mully
against her. Damned if Mully’s father asks his son to take money from the
kindly landlady who, during the night, shared a drink with Joy and allowed her
to use her car to get to the airport. Mully’s father is damned. Mully steals
the money from him a second time.
Joy gets to the airport, buys a new ticket and some clothes
and boards the plane. Then she has a change of flight and asks to leave –
that’s Colman’s signature erratic behaviour for you. The stewardess refuses to
let her do so with the explanation that it will delay the plane. ‘I only have
hand luggage and the stairs are still there,’ Joy insists. A stag party joins
in with her protest. Eventually she is allowed to leave. Thank goodness for
rowdy stag parties.
Joy acts out of concern for Mully and somehow finds his
abandoned car, having driven away the kindly landlady’s car (still parked
outside the airport) just before it is about to be clamped. Mully makes his way
through a Gaelic parade where men and women are dressed as mythical hairy
beasts and steals an ice cream van. One of the costumed townsfolk worked at the
port. She recognises Joy, who immediately wants to hire her car. The young
woman offers to drive her. They end up at the beach. Joy confronts Mully’s
father. Mully runs into the water, replaying the traumatic moment in Joy’s
life.
Periodically, characters speak with Sideline Sue (Olwyn Fouéré) who observes everything from her doorstep. Joy refers to Sue
as her mentor. She comes up with an explanation to justify stealing a car and
fleeing from the police – ‘post-partum depression’. There is the resolution we
expect. Does the baby get a name? Why Robin, of course – that crane shot just
got even more groanworthy. Joy’s character arc might be more meaningful if she
really did have a new life to go to and not just a holiday. Ah well, everyone
concerned knows it’s a caper. One just wishes it was invested with more logic.
Having failed to be feelgood, Joyride is not quite a ‘feel
nothing’ movie but its virtues are minimal. Sadly, Reynolds does not show a
flair for comedy drama, rather only for a kitschy pop song from my youth.
Reviewed at Cineworld Ashford Screen Seven, Kent, Sunday
31 July 2022, 18:40 screening
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