The Miracle Club
A stellar cast adopts the hushed tones of an inconsequential Irish drama that is as implausible as it is inert.
A long journey to nowhere: Laura Linney and Maggie Smith
Of course, there are miracles all around us. But the miracles in Thaddeus O'Sullivan’s muted, lightweight drama are of the more personal variety. Unfortunately, the women at the centre of this Irish tale aren’t really that interesting. Films about boring people have their place, but only if they are believable. There’s nary a credible bone in this underwhelming piece, pasted together by three separate scenarists. Maybe one draft of the screenplay inspired the money men, not to mention stars of the calibre of Laura Linney, Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith. But the result, for all the whisps of blarney, is terribly insipid.
Set in the year 1967 in the village of Ballygar, County Galway, The Miracle Club gathers around some local womenfolk competing in a talent contest in order to win the first prize of a trip to Lourdes. The second prize is a joint of bacon (the film’s funniest joke). However, the status quo is unsettled with the appearance of Chrissie Ahearn (Laura Linney), who had upped sticks to Boston forty years previously. And so it falls to the viewer to piece together the fabric of secrets and lies that have bound and separated these women over the decades.
There is some schadenfreude in witnessing Kathy Bates adopt the Irish brogue, and the scenes at Lourdes are quite interesting (I didn’t know that the nuns there had Irish accents). The film’s real trouble, though, is that it isn’t very well directed. Thaddeus O'Sullivan (Stella Days, The Heart of Me) has aimed for a low-key tone, but some inelegant edits, perplexing non sequiturs and a visually unprepossessing palette have done him no favours. For most of the time, the actors seem to be whispering to each other, as if they had already arrived at the French shrine (an ill-advised device considering that they are whispering in Irish accents). It's all terribly cosy and the neatness of the ending will come as no surprise to anybody. But even as the layers are teased away with ceremonial reverence, what lies beneath is just not compelling, let alone earth-shattering.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Laura Linney, Kathy Bates, Maggie Smith, Agnes O'Casey, Stephen Rea, Mark O'Halloran, Mark McKenna, Niall Buggy, Hazel Doupe, Eric Smith, Lesley Conroy, and the voice of Brenda Fricker.
Dir Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Pro Chris Curling, Joshua D. Maurer, Oisín O'Neill, Aaron Farrell, John Gleeson and Alixandre Witlin, Screenplay Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D. Maurer, Ph John Conroy, Pro Des John Hand, Ed Alex Mackie, Music Edmund Butt, Costumes Judith Williams, Sound Alex Outhwaite, Dialect coach Brendan Gunn.
Zephyr Films/City Films Entertainment-Lionsgate UK.
90 mins. Ireland/UK. 2023. US Rel: 18 August 2023. UK Rel: 13 October 2023. Cert. 12A.
