Garage

Director Lenny Abrahamson’s first feature Adam and Paul made him a director to bookmark for future reference. With Garage, Abrahamson and screenwriter Mark O’Halloran cement their reputations as a filmmaking double act of real talent.

With minimal fuss and a surplus of warmth and sensitivity, their movie is an unexpected gem, an engrossing tale of a misfit living on the edge of a town that doesn’t know what to do with him.

Josie (Shortt), the misfit in question, is a fortysomething man-child, emotionally stunted and whose life is the crumbling garage, a dingy backroom bedsit conversion, and the country road leading either to a local shop or the town pub.

Good-natured and lonely, he clumsily attempts to woo the shop’s till-girl (Duff, Mrs James McAvoy), and in the pub endures double-barrelled sarcasm.

But, when his boss drops off 15-year old David (Ryan) to help him with the pumps, Josie forms a sweet-natured friendship with the lad based on crafty after-hours cans of cheap beer.

Sharply-written, economically shot (but with a good eye for the gorgeous West-Irish countryside) and magnificently played by a cast of believable faces, Garage is a treat.

Abrahamson's Ken Loach-like discretion allows the actors space to inhabit O’Halloran’s well-written characters in an authentic feeling community, where the fact that everyone knows each other is the biggest strength and greatest danger.

Duff and Ryan are excellent support, but comedian Pat Shortt is a revelation as the big-hearted, soft-headed garage attendant, physically awkward, wide-eyed and with a permanent smile on his face whether on the receiving end of pub jibes or a lakeside confession from his frail dad.

The film tips over into arguably unnecessary melodrama, centred around a Ben Dover style porno (that got the film a harsh “18” certificate), presumably so the filmmakers could add tragic weight to Josie's character.

But, despite this stumble, Garage warms the heart even as it breaks it.

Rob Daniel