Review of What Richard Did (2012) by Michael H — 17 Jan 2013

With a director and cast unknown to me, Lenny Abrahamson's "What Richard Did" has been receiving some high praise from the British media recently. The Irish Times is calling it "the most important Irish movie of this century" though I couldn't tell you what the contenders were.

Let's start with the good. The film opts for bold, understated realism where so many other dramas reach for the theatrical. With a quiet, often non-existent soundtrack and a script relatively lacking in melodrama, it managed to convince me that the situation it presents, of privileged, going-places young Richard, facing a moral dilemma after a brawl leaves another boy dead, could happen to anyone capable of losing their temper.

The lead performance by newcomer Jack Reynor is mostly impressive, though rarely stretching. While these things should have combined to make me identify with the character though, I found myself at a distance. Quite often I found myself thinking that this film was made with an older audience in mind, those who have children of their own. It seemed to me that the director wanted us to see the film not from the perspective of Richard and his friends, but from their parents' eyes. Indeed, the only times I truly felt the stakes of his situation were in the scenes where Richard reaches out to his father following the fight.

Having no children of my own, this left me feeling slightly alienated from the film, able to participate as an observer only. Presenting us with very little else to connect with, this ultimately meant that I felt far less of the emotional power which so many in the media seem to have experienced.