Garage (film)

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Garage
Garage film poster
Directed by	Lenny Abrahamson
Produced by	Ed Guiney
Written by	Mark O'Halloran
Starring	Pat Shortt Anne-Marie Duff Conor Ryan
Music by	Stephen Rennicks
Cinematography	Peter Robertson
Editing by	Isobel Stephenson
Distributed by	Element Pictures
Release date(s)	October 5th 2007 January 9th 2008
Running time	85 min.
Country	Ireland
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Garage is a 2007 Irish film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and written by Mark O'Halloran, the same team behind Adam and Paul. It stars Pat Shortt, Anne-Marie Duff and Conor J. Ryan. Garage has won CICAE Art and Essai Cinema Prize at the Cannes Film Festival^[1] and the Best Film Prize at Turin Film Festival (€25.000). The film tells the story of a lonely petrol station attendant and how he slowly begins to come out of his shell.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Awards
5 Reception
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Plot

Josie, played by Pat Shortt, has lived his whole lonely life in a small Irish village, working in a garage for a former classmate, Mr. Skeritt. Skeritt, it is said, is waiting for the right offer from developers so he can sell. One day rolls into another for Josie with nothing but his menial job and a few pints in the local pub to entertain him. His drinking buddies in the pub, especially Breffni, mock him and his ways.

Josie seems oddly happy with his banal existence, however his working day in the garage is altered when his boss hires his girlfriend's son, David (played by Conor Ryan) to help Josie. Josie is content to talk to someone different and happy not to be labelled like he has been by the rest of the town. Soon, he joins David and other local teenagers down by the railway tracks drinking beer and he gets the courage to dance with a local shopkeeper called Carmel. However Carmel appears to hurt Josie when she explains, explicitly, that she has no physical attraction towards him. As the friendship between Josie and David progresses, Josie shows David (who is 15 years old) a pornographic film which Josie received from a trucker who frequents the petrol station. Later on in the film, Josie is taken to the local Garda (police) station and informed that there has been a complaint made against him by David's mother who has found out that Josie has supplied David with alcohol and shown him inappropriate material. Josie is instructed to stay away from the town and especially to avoid contact with David or David's family. Josie stresses that it was all just a bit of "craic" and "pure innocent", but also feels disgraced and ashamed of himself. Josie's stress can be seen when he arrives home from the Garda station and pauses from his dinner to sigh, obviously agitated and confused. The film ends in slight ambiguity as we see Josie rise early in the morning and walk down to the local lake. There, he sits for a while, after which he removes his shoes, socks and cap and wades into the water. The final shot of Josie shows a rear shot of Josie progressing into the water, arms outstretched. The final clip of the film is of a horse walking towards the screen along the railway tracks. This is the same horse which Josie fed apples to earlier in the film. Just as the horse was locked in the field, so too was Josie locked into his own little world. It is assumed that Josie set the horse free and then set himself free by committing suicide in the lake.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Pat Shortt	Josie
Anne Marie Duff	Carmel
Conor Ryan	David
Tommy Fitzgerald	Declan

[edit] Production

The film was shot on location in Birr Co. Offaly, Portumna and Woodford Co. Galway, and Tipperary, as well as some interior scenes in Dublin, in a six week period over late summer 2006. The Initial cut of the film was 2 hours long, but was subsequently cut to its running time of 85 minutes. The Film was financed by the Irish Film Board, Film 4, RTE and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. ^[2] The films premiere was in Rathcabbin, where the garage part were filmed. ^[3] Garage initially will have a limited release in 11 cinemas around Ireland, with a wider release planned after. ^[4]

[edit] Awards

As well as winning the CICAE Art and Essai Cinema Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Garage has been an official selection for the London Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, the Sao Paolo Film Festival, the Torino Film Festival and the Pusan Film Festival.^[5] The film won several awards at the 2008 Irish Film and Television Awards, including Best Film, Best Script and best Actor for Pat Shortt.^[6]

[edit] Reception

The film has received generally positive reviews so far based on its showing at Cannes. The Irish Times declared "Pat Short is a revelation in the central role. He brings a wonderful physicality to the character of Josie"^[7] Screen daily also gave good reviews stating "The comic timing of the first two thirds of the film, on the part of both actor and director, is impeccable" "^[8] RTÉ said "Playing the misfit with a poignancy that bears down on you more with every scene" and gave it four stars. ^[9]