When Brendan Met Trudy

(Kieron J. Walsh, Ireland/UK, 2000)

Filmmakers from small countries have a fatal attraction for romantic comedies.

No wonder: they are cheap, do not require large casts or special effects and are able to whip up pleasant emotions. However, one must search long and hard these days for a decent movie in this genre.

This Irish effort is as weak as many Australian romantic comedies (like Paperback Hero [1999] or Dear Claudia [1999]). Touted as the "first original screenplay" by Roddy Doyle, it marks a steep drop in quality from his writing in The Snapper (1993) and The Van (1996).

Quirkiness is not the exclusive property of Australian filmmakers. Here, director Kieron J. Walsh seizes on the disparity between his leading characters – shy, stiff Brendan (Peter McDonald) and life-loving Trudy (Flora Montgomery) – and exaggerates it ad nauseam.

While feisty Trudy keeps squealing about fun, sex and parties, nerdy Brendan moons around remembering his favourite film scenes. The spark between these two is non-existent and utterly unbelievable. The actors, who are quite awful, abandon themselves to this impossible premise.

For a while, Doyle and Walsh drop hints that Trudy may secretly be a man-hating serial killer, which might have been an intriguing complication along the path of true love. But then the movie does a flip, sending the pair into a merry life of crime. This gives Brendan the chance to start dressing like Jean-Paul Belmondo in À bout de souffle (1960) and at last "live his dreams", while Trudy loudly expresses her delight, even when behind jail bars.

It is a monotonous and tedious affair, largely unfunny beyond a few initial chuckles. Much of the running time is devoted to supposedly knowing gags about film buffery, although the alarm bells sound early on when the merest utterance of the words "Polish cinema" is obviously meant to bring the house down in gales of laughter.

© Adrian Martin September 2001