Review of What Richard Did (2012) by Biff B — 10 Mar 2013

A human-scale movie from Ireland about a group of normal middle-class kids makes a change from the vicarious focus on the under-classes which has become tedious, pornographic, as we sit and watch movies about cripplingly damaged young people from the inner cities - not us, not ours, but 'them'. Richard and his group are the privileged scions of the professional classes who inhabit leafy Dublin suburbs and all is fun and promise. And Richard.... well, he does something; and it is a single act and it is violent and nothing will ever be the same again.

There is no judgement here: there is just moral ambiguity (which I for one really wish I did not so closely recognise). Nor do I see, as others say they have, allegorical reference to Ireland or bugger all else. Such mumbo jumbo over-interpretation seems to me to be symptomatic of moral poverty, as if the ordinary errors concomitant with the human condition somehow are not enough and a tale needs something more grandiose, intellectually demanding, more possessed of meaning. Oh yes, 'meaning'.

Well, this is to demean our humanity. 'What Richard Did' seems to me to be how it is. That one ill-considered action can change lives, end them (bloody hell, begin them). Lean, vivid and brilliant, this is one of the 'truest' films you're likely to see.