Written and directed by Robbie Walsh who also plays a scene as a taxi driver. Walsh is a young director from Dublin with an ability to weave a story from experience well beyond his years.
Using pacing that is reminiscent of Loaches, I, Daniel Blake combining hand held pov camera moves of Soderbergh's fluidity, the story draws you in from the go get and gives you reasons to keep watching as the slow building suspence leads you toward a conclusion that is more sentimental than the subject matter deserved but as cinematic as any ending could hope to offer.
As Yasujirõ Ozu's use of a single prop, the watch, in his masterpeice Tokyo Story, Walsh hints to another in Eden from the start, echoed by Eve's character turning up, a champagne socialist, charity bunny, slumming it over coffee/perhaps tea? with the homeless Adam after a chance encounter reveals an unexpected outcome, played demourly by Nicci St. George Smith.
As all self appointed Alfa Male directors are "these days", Walsh is no exception to that rule or atleast the concealment of his true identity, a helpless romantic at heart, Walsh makes a heroic attempt at breaking the social paradigm of Homeless Genocidal Acceptability aswell as trying to deny the underlying false platitude of a femininist in the fleeting moment of love between two people, "Adam and Eve" diametrically apposed by circumstance, on both sides of the wrong story.
Johnny Elliott, playing Adam in the lead role is masterful. An actor that hasn't been given a fair shake by other directors with less ability than Walsh who have benefited from Elliot's presence playing minor roles in their films in the past and in more recent times. Let's hope this changes.
With most of the main characters and supporting roles well cast, more preparation and time would have made the performances more convincing, a current flaw running through Irish film today, which is inexcusable regardless of budget as it's lethargy to correction, could have brought this film to a much wider audience and unfortunately the oversight of inexperience by Walsh opened the work to more criticism than it deserves by some critics with surprisingly less experience with the keybord than even the cinematography they clumsily critique from a position of Ignorance, where it would? or should, be preferentially placed for them! rather than recognising the emotive forces Walsh has an instinct for and places you within regardless of the camera "personysomebody's" lack of equipment doled out to crews by film boards, that have clearly no real use for.
Walsh like all directors is hardly original but shows a deep understanding of character, using the minimum amount of script to signal to the audience what he wants them to understand while maintaining an ever increasing curiousity for plot reveals throughout Eden.
This is echoed in his choice of casting kept in check by his understanding of the terrain he is covering, shot over three days in his home town of Swords, county Dublin.
Performances by Sarah Carroll as Claire the prostitute are noteworthy, as they are believable.
From the many short inter changes between the main character Adam and whomever he meets in this single day, journeying through a Ullysean, post bankrupt Dublin, nuanced by hidden linguistic truths of colloquials, flyting over the heads of any uninitiated audience.
The script may at first seem simplistic in its construct but with Eden, Walsh has attempted to construct in his feature a narative as true as Joyce's masterpeice but without the obvious abillity of understanding that great book's technical secrets, the attempt however deserves mention as remaining on this Artistic course will serve him well in future films he will no doubt make.
Worth noting is a Cameo by Alan Sherlock (guy at bus stop) an actor who has come on since his early career and will continue to get better as long as the roles find him.
The makings of a troup may have been inadvertently made with Eden but should be given another outing if Walsh is to understand what he has attempted, let alone achieved.
