Movies Reviews

Kisses – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Jul 22, 2010, 23:17 GMT

“On the fringes of Dublin two kids, Kylie and Dylan, live in a suburban housing estate devoid of life, colour and the prospect of escape. Kylie lives with five other siblings and her overworked mother. Next door, Dylan lives in the shadow of an alcoholic father and the memory of an elder brother who ran away from home two years earlier. a violent altercation with his father, Dylan runs away from ...more

Dorothy parachutes into Dublin in search of the Wizard but there is no place like home.

Emerging director/writer Lance Daly has come upon a small bit of Irish magic with this tale of two children running away from home. Well received since its 2008 debut in Ireland, the story revolves around two kids living outside Dublin with families that are drastically dysfunctional. Kylie (Kelly O'Neill) lives in a six-sibling family headed by her mother who looks about ready to throw in the towel.

Next door, Dylan (Shane Curry) hides from his alcoholic father in a cubbyhole in the entry hall but is found out and given the routine dose of drunken irrational abuse. Dylan runs away from home and Kylie decides to join him on his journey to find his older brother and re-unite with him in the seamier ‘hoods of Dublin.

This film is typical of earlier childhood adventure tales. Since “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz” children have been escaping to new lands, new people and things and great, marvelous and scary adventures. These stories have heft because they are enactments of childhood rites of passage. The innocent child enters the rough and tumble new world and comes back a little older but a lot wiser.

“Toto, there is no place like home.” Ain’t it the truth? Director Daly even used the black and white merging to color trick in this film. The first third / half is black and white and somewhere in the depths of dead-drunk Dublin everything turns to color.

This change is not only without significant effect it is without the slightest rhyme or reason of any kind. If the color change had happened when the two kids see Dublin for the first time that might have been powerful. It might also have too obvious a copy of the “Oz” trick. In any event, in this film it seems so sudden and off-balance that it is actually funny.

Daly does a good job of filming from the children’s level and from their point of view. This is critical to the effect any kid-perspective flick. He got it right, especially when the kids are hungry and looking up at food. The kids are presented with several decision points about whether to trust adults or not or whether to make a rash move.

Looking up at dicey adults is a bit more terrifying than looking them in the eye. They loom over the little one like the dragon over the knight. Fun stuff.

Throughout the trip the kids demonstrate their newfound freedom by doing tricky kid stuff such as jumping aboard the dredging boat on the river and forcing the operator to give them a very illegal ride. The operator goes along with them, of course, because they are so charming and he is not worried about losing his job, anyway. This sort of nonsense seems to transpire just when the gorgeous photographer of greater Dublin is starting to take effect.

The audience is staring with wonder at the old, collapsing and mysteriously potent alleys and rubbish of the inner city, yearning to explore its most private parts, and then the kids buy skate shoes and run up and down the streets skating. The spell of the revelation is broken by the mediocrity of the suburban childhood from which the kids escaped.

On the indie legitimacy scale this film gets a big 10 out of 10. There could have been a set or two fabricated or a costume or two sewn or some artificial lighting used now and then, or there might have none of those things at all. Daly uses the hidden pearls of beauty beneath the filth and decay of the inner city to drive this film. It would have been a better film with more Huck Finn inner city adventures and less childish drawing on the foggy glass or getting the haircut.

The sound track dotes on Bob Dylan, for some inexplicable reason. This combined with the black and white to color transition take the surreal nature of the environment over the top. But not in a good way.

The average viewer is going to have a hard time figuring out what Dylan has to do with two kids running away from home. It would have been a better film to drop the Dylan angle and concentrate on the color that Dublin has to offer. The city does not have to borrow color from ancient American rock stars.

All in all a commendable, honest and thorough indie effort, but there are better things to come from this cast and crew.

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Directed and Written by: Lance Daly
Starring: Kelly O'Neill and Shane Curry
Release: July 16, 2010
MPAA: not rated
Runtime: 72 minutes
Country: Ireland
Language: English
Color: Black and White / Color