Glassland

Jack Reynor and Toni Collette both do extremely powerful work in this study an Irish working- class lad in his early 20s trying desperately to deal with his mother's raging suicidal alcoholism. There are a number of deeply disturbing scenes between them, and other that are truly heartbreaking. It's not often we see two actors bring such complexity to what could easily have been familiar and forced.

But there's something off in the film – the script tends to go wordy and oddly theatrical at times, although at others it's gratifyingly understated. (It's much better when it's showing instead of telling). And the interesting - but seemingly left field - story line/moral dilemma of the last 15 minutes seems weirdly stuck onto the far more interesting and coherent central plot.

Still, it's very worth seeing for the performances (including Will Poulter as Raynor's only good friend), but it feels like an interesting film that sadly missed a shot at being a great one.

Here is an engaging, well-told story about addiction and the relationship between mother and son. Sounds melodramatic, and in aspects it could be, but it never feels like such a film. The whole thing is fully realized, very well-written, with a clear, true eye for the characters and who they are. The two leads are fantastic, especially Jack Reynor who I was previously impressed by in What Richard Did. He's a true leading actor, and he has proved to have the talent to really dive into raw, strong material. The film would be worth it just for him, but all of the actors are committed. This is definitely very recommended for all filmgoers.

Both Toni Collette and Jack Reynor excel in their starring roles in this rather dark Irish drama. Collette portrays Jean, who is drinking herself to death, and will need a liver transplant if she can last long enough to see that day come. Reynor plays her loving and devoted son John, who's a hard working Dublin cab driver, but who is also struggling mightily trying to cope with his mother's addiction. After an honest intervention with his mother, she agrees to enter a short term government-run treatment facility, but in order to get her much needed longer term care, John will have to make some painful decisions as to how to get the money to pay for it all.

Thanks to Collette and Reynor's superb performances, along with sharp writing and direction from Irish filmmaker Gerard Barrett, the characters and situations in the film came across to me as quite realistic. As the movie progresses, it lightens up somewhat from its very morose beginnings, and may very well tug at your heartstrings.

All in all, I definitely wasn't thrilled with the film's rather ambiguous ending, but the movie, in general, came across to me as quite heart-felt, and offered a realistic look at the horrific effects of addiction on a person and those around them.

Review: Although this movie is about a deep subject matter, I still found it quite boring and depressing. The whole tone didn't seem to change from the beginning to end and I didn't really get the moral of the story. Anyway, the film is about a young cab driver called John (Jack Reynor), who looks after his mother, Jean (Toni Collette) who is slowly killing herself with alcohol. One day he comes home from work to find her passed out in bed, so he quickly rushes her to the hospital so they can revive her. The doctors tell him that she is really pushes her addiction to drink, to the limit and that she really needs to get help so he decides to put her in a rehabilitation centre so she can get clean. His best friend, Shane (Will Poulter) decides to leave Dublin but John can't go with him because he looks after his disabled brother, who the mother has disowned, and he's worried about his mum's health. He then gets told that his mother can only stay in the centre for a little while but there is an opening at another home which costs quite a bit of money, so he has to take on a people trafficking job to pay for her stay. After his friend leaves, he's left all on his own to try and pull his family together, with no support from anyone. It's quite an emotional movie with some good acting, especially from Toni Collette but I was left feeling quite depressed. There isn't any major twisted or surprising changes to the storyline but you can't help feeling for poor John who just wants the best for everyone. The emotional scene at the airport, when Shane leaves, shows that John really did want to leave to better his life but he has a good heart and his family come first. Anyway, you do have to be in the right mood to watch this deep drama because it definitely isn't upbeat. Average!

Round-Up: Jack Reynor, 23, must have thought that he had won the lottery when he got a role in the lead alongside Mark Wahlberg in Transformers: Age of Extinction but the movie received mixed reviews and it got panned by a lot of the critics. I personally didn't think it was that bad. He also starred in Vince Vaughn's Delivery Man and he stars in the upcoming Macbeth with Michael Fassbender so this small budget movie definitely hasn't damaged his reputation. The film was written and directed by Gerard Barrett who brought you the highly acclaimed Pilgrim Hill, which I personally haven't seen but at 28 years old, I can honestly say that he didn't do to bad job for his 2nd project. I think that he should have given the storyline a bit more substance, from a entertainment point of view but he put together an emotional movie which some people will be able to relate to. All of the cast was a perfect choice for the subject matter but I did find myself drifting off after a while.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their emotional dramas about a young teenager having to look after his alcoholic mother. 3/10

Glassland is both a love story without sex, and a crime story without violence—a decided anomaly among just about every other film about life in an Irish slum. The love is between an overworked cabdriver named John (Jack Reynor) and Jean (Toni Collette), his alcoholic mother. As Jean drinks herself closer and closer to the grave, John's desperation to get his mother into a rehabilitation clinic despite their poverty leads him to question his own moral boundaries. Glassland is a melancholy, understated look at the combination of poverty and self-destruction that is so common in our society. Collette delivers a performance that jumps back and forth between snarling addict and penitent matriarch, and Reynor captures the pain and frustration of seeing a loved one spiral out of control. Despite the powerful performances by the film's actors, the film suffers from pacing issues that occasionally derail the film's momentum and muddle the narrative. Regardless, Glassland is a refreshingly modest take on issues that are typically addressed with more gratuitous filmmaking. –Alex Springer