Ms. Hen reviews two Irish films

The Young Offenders

Directed by Peter Foott

2016

Streaming on Netflix

The Hole in the Ground

Directed by Lee Cronin

2019

Streaming for free on Amazon Prime

Ms. Hen is a hen is isolation right now. She has a lot of time on her hands to watch movies and TV shows and read books and try to write and fill time. For St. Patrick’s Day, she didn’t have any corn beef and cabbage, and didn’t have any soda bread or scones, there was no beef stew, and no Guinness, but she did listen to some Irish music and read an Irish book, (which she will review later); she wore a green sweater and some shamrock earrings that lit up, and she decided to watch two Irish films.

The first film she watched was THE YOUNG OFFENDERS. It’s a comedy, and it’s exactly what Ms. Hen needed in these dark times. The film is about two high school boys, a couple of street thugs from Cork City who decide to go on a hunt for some bales of cocaine that washed up on the shore many kilometers away so they could sell it and become rich and escape their lives of poverty. They steal some bikes and go on an adventure. Ms. Hen’s favorite scene in this film is the one with the chickens, and it made her laugh out loud.  This film has subtitles, and she needed them because it was difficult for Ms. Hen to understand what the characters say. Ms. Hen recommends this for anyone who needs a good laugh, and she believes everyone does right now.

The second film she watched was THE HOLE IN THE GROUND, a horror film. Ms. Hen is a fan of scary movies and TV shows, but she didn’t think this movie was nearly scary enough. It’s about a woman and her son, and they move into a new house. There is a hole in the ground in the woods near where they live. The boy disappears and becomes a different person. Some people might think this is scary because the mother is afraid of her son, who is the monster, but Ms. Hen thought it was boring. It seemed to her like all the other horror films, with nothing original or colorful about it. Ms. Hen likes horror that will tell a different story, or show her something she has never seen before. There was nothing in this film that did that.

Ms. Hen would like to wish everyone a belated St. Patrick’s Day. She hopes everyone is doing well, and surviving. There is an Irish blessing that says, “If God sends you down a stony path, may He give you strong shoes.” We should all consider this right now. We need strong shoes for our journey.