The Snapper
Directed by Stephen Frears
With Tina Kellegher, Colm Meaney and Ruth McCabe
Dendy Cinema, Sydney
Reviewed by Catherine Brown
"Am I the only person in this house taking this seriously?", asks Dessie Curley (Colm Meaney) as his wife Kay (Ruth McCabe) and pregnant daughter Sharon (Tina Kellegher) collapse on the floor in helpless laughter at his attempts to come to grips with the physiological stages of his unmarried daughter's pregnancy.
The Snapper is based on the second part of Irish author Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy. The Commitments, the trilogy's first part, portrays the same family, the Rabbittes, but due to copyright the name has been changed. With less music, it is the humorous dialogue in The Snapper that makes it memorable.
"The novel [The Snapper] caused a stir in Ireland when it was published because it showed that such institutions as the church no longer have any real impact in working class Dublin", explained Doyle. "Today fewer people attend mass and fewer people take any notice of what the priest says."
In the opening scene of the film, Sharon announces to her parents that she's pregnant and refuses to name the man involved. Despite the initial shock — "You're only 19!", "I'm 20, da" — the parents get used to the idea, and Dessie Curley actually becomes enthusiastic about understanding what he failed to understand when his own six children were born. We see an embarrassed Dessie buying Everywoman to understand what is happening to his daughter.
Kay Curley is more tentative about the situation asking whether they should tell their other daughters that it is wrong. "Having a baby?", asks a puzzled Dessie. "Not being married. Shouldn't we say it is better to be married?", suggests Kay. Dessie merely shrugs and leaves the decision with her.
While the Curleys accept Sharon's pregnancy, after rumours circulate amongst the neighbours as to who the unknown man is, Sharon and her family face abuse in the streets. When Dessie returns from the pub with a bloody nose for "sticking up for Sharon", Kay contemptuously calls him "a prick".
Unable to deal with the developing situation and banished from his pub, Dessie doesn't talk to Sharon until she finally forces him to deal with his own confused feelings. "Da, why aren't you talking to me?". "I said 'good morning' to you yesterday." But the pregnancy brings them closer together, and it's Dessie that anxiously paces up and down in the waiting room after Sharon refuses to allow him to attend the birth.
The highlights of the film are the relationship between Sharon and her father, and Sharon and her women friends' nights in the local pub, where Doyle's humour really shines through. Well worth seeing.