For anyone who has been close to an alcoholic, or someone with mental-health issues or, as is the case here, both at once, this is a hard watch. Film-maker Myrid Carten, who holds the camera much of the time as well as directing, exposes here the open wound that is her relationship with her mother Nuala, who has both bipolar disorder and alcoholism. Nuala often goes missing on binges, and as the film opens we hear Myrid telling someone on the phone how she just spotted her mother on a Belfast street in a total state, but recognisable because of the glamorous high-heeled shoes she was wearing.
You’d struggle to realise this is the same woman we see in news footage from years earlier: soignée, composed and described as a social worker who has written a guidance paper for police on how to handle victims of domestic abuse. The Nuala of the present, when sober, is still articulate, empathic and insightful at times – it’s just that she can’t stop herself from hitting the red wine hard, an addiction that similarly affects one of her brothers. Families, eh?
