As even a novice moviegoer would expect, they argue and drink, then argue and drink some more.
Red Roses and Petrol (2008)
Theatrical Release: 2008
Synopsis: Based on a successful Irish play by acclaimed writer Joseph O’Connor, and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, Red Roses and Petrol is a darkly comedic drama and a tour-de-force showcase for Malcolm McDowell as Enda Doyle, a university librarian, poet, and rascal who is the flawed patriarch of a... Based on a successful Irish play by acclaimed writer Joseph O’Connor, and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, Red Roses and Petrol is a darkly comedic drama and a tour-de-force showcase for Malcolm McDowell as Enda Doyle, a university librarian, poet, and rascal who is the flawed patriarch of a dysfunctional family struggling to come to terms with his death and with one another. Unfolding amidst a haze of cigarette smoke and uneaten food, as his family gathers in Dublin for his wake, the film explores the emotional dynamics of familial relationships with sharp humor and surprising turns. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Susan Lynch, Max Beesley, Greg Ellis, Heather Juergensen
Reviews
Solid performances and a literary feel help turn a standard family-rift drama into a dry but saucy narrative.
If, as Tolstoy observed, happy families are alike, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, the Dublin-set film Red Roses and Petrol didn't get the message, being a dysfunctional clan movie that feels dispiritingly like all the others.
With her static camera, director and co-writer Tamar Simon Hoffs has done little to move it out of its staginess.
In Red Roses and Petrol, a soused, post-funeral postmortem on a dysfunctional Dublin family, the misery seeps from the screen in cold, damp waves; by the end you’ll be grabbing for the bottle yourself.
As bland and effortless to consume as a Fig Newton (sickly sweet goo included), this rote entry in the dysfunctional-family-gathers-at-a-funeral genre makes no demands on its viewers beyond a limp appeal to the tear ducts.
Tamar Simon Hoffs's bland-as-boiled-cabbage adaptation of Joseph O'Connor's play finally hobbles into theaters, reminding us every 15 seconds that just because it looks distinctly American and was shot in California, it's a fookin' Irish movie.
I’d rather just sit in on one of my own families squabbles; we’re much more entertaining.
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by: max2007max 5/12


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