Here is a terrifically warm and involving Irish movie about two brothers from Cork’s northside; it is moving and funny, with plenty of affectionate shots of the iconic Knocknaheeny water tower looming futuristically over the skyline like a 70s spaceship or one of eastern Europe’s Soviet-era war memorials. Screenwriter Alan O’Gorman and first-time director and story co-creator Brendan Canty deliver a social-realist film with heart, featuring outstanding performances of sympathy and strength, developed from Canty’s 2019 short film of the same name. It’s tough, but capable of delicacy and succeeds in conveying something very difficult to achieve without sentimentality: love of your home town. You can come for the drama and stay for the cheeky hip-hop sequence over the closing credits, a final stretch of sweetness and fun that the movie has more than earned, and which Canty, a former music video director, is more than capable of putting together.
Shane (Diarmuid Noyes) is a young guy once in care, but turning his life around in Cork with wife Stacey (Emma Willis), a baby and a painting-and-decorating business. It is now Shane’s grim task to deal with his younger half-brother Christy (Danny Power), a seething, glowering 17-year-old who has just lost his place with a foster family in Ballincollig on the other side of town owing to an ugly scrap, a video of which is going viral on social media. So Shane brings him back and lets him live in his place for a while on the understanding that he will soon move back out, probably into a grim hostel.
