Starring: Brendan O'Carroll, Eilish O'Carroll, Jennifer Gibney
Never at a loss for words, Agnes Brown (B. O'Carroll) runs a market stall on Moor Street, Dublin and spends the rest of her time drinking at the pub and spending time with her various relatives. Things seem to go well for her, until a local politician (Dermot Crowley) backed by a cooperation and Russian thugs try and close the market down, leading Mrs. Brown to spring into action.
If you want a good example of the gulf that exists between general audiences and critics (although I contend that pretty much EVERY audience member is a critic in a certain respect) you need to look no further than the TV series, Mrs. Brown's Boys; a show that has had millions rolling in laughter and an equal number scratching their heads in confusion. I count myself in the latter half. Being old-fashioned isn't necessarily a bad thing with sitcoms. Personally, I'm a fan of Modern Family, a fairly traditional domestic sit-com updated for what constitutes a family in early 21st century but Mrs. Brown's Boys seems like a step backwards towards those badly-aged 70's sitcoms even the smaller digital channels don't show anymore. Still, given its marketability, the inevitable movie is here.
What's often forgotten is that Agnes Brown (once known as Agnes Browne) is no stranger to the big screen, going back to the film Agnes Browne in 1999, where she was played by Anjelica Huston, no less. Based on a book, The Mammy, its author Brendan O'Carroll has long since played the role. O'Carroll is an extremely intelligent man with a great deal of talent and ingenuity. If he finds this role enjoyable, than good for him and the money he has earned. But an acquired taste is what is needed to make Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie enjoyable. You either get the appeal or you don't and frankly, I don't.
Save for the ample outside sets, the film still feels very televisual. As the film's plot builds and builds this is done away with but you get the feeing that the filmmakers are playing it safe. I shudder to think how this film would've turned out if Mrs. Brown and her family had ventured to foreign climes, an old chestnut of sitcom-to-film adaptations but its focus on the parochial has its own pitfalls. This mostly manifests itself in a parochial tweeness where slushy synth strings underline rather treacly notions of family and community mixed with gags that aren't just crass, they're genuinely offensive. My senses could not quite believe it when O'Carroll strode onto screen as Mr. Wang, surely the most outdated caricature of Chinese culture (whether Wang is genuinely Chinese or not) since Peter Ustinov in One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. The film's depiction of the blind is also a little troubling both ethically and factually and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what happens when a character has Tourettes.
The supporting cast, as with the TV show and the live performances is comprised of O'Carroll's own family and they're all capable performers and you believe no-one's performance is being carried here even if the material isn't particularly strong. Like the show, there's corpsing (when an actor, usually in a comedy, laughs during the performance and break character). It's fairly common in sitcoms, especially given their smaller resources and live performance aspect compared to film but in a fairly novel twist is tried out here a couple of times in the movie. The actors having to go over the same scene again, breaking the suspension of disbelief but making for an admittedly interesting experiment.
Inevitably the film tries to go for drama and the cast (particularly Brendan O'Carroll and Jennifer Gibney as Agnes' daughter) have enough ability to make the performances convincing even if neither delivers a masterclass but the stabs at drama never come close to overtaking the comical aspect of the film which I personally didn't find very appealing. Fans may get something out of this and that's perfectly fine but those unconverted who are foolish to think that maybe it might be better as a movie are best staying away.
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