 |
Video Review |
 |
|
Video Review |
|
Last Updated 02/04/03
Email: robitai@our-town.com
Agnes Browne
“Agnes Browne” is a movie about a woman with an indomitable spirit. Given her situation, I don’t think I could be so happy. It’s 1967 in Dublin, Ireland. Agnes (Anjelica Huston) and her best friend Marion (Marion O’Dwyer) stand in line at the welfare office. Mr. Browne’s been dead since ten past four that same afternoon, and she’s there to collect widow’s payments. She has seven children left to feed, ages two through fourteen, so she’s wasting no time.
Agnes lives a full but simple life, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. Enjoying her new-found freedom from the tedium of her twenty year marriage (she mourned little, if at all), she opens herself to new experiences. She solidifies her relationship with best friend Marion and steps out on the town with the French baker Pierre (Arno Chevrier).
Financial circumstances what they are, she borrows money from the resident nasty loan shark Mr. Billy (Ray Winstone) whose nastiness increases when she pays him back before he can squeeze her for more interest. He vows to get even with “Mrs. Pay-in-one-lump.”
So Agnes battles the complications of her life as they come, nose-to-the grindstone, working hard, and asking for little. She has but one dream: to see Tom Jones in person. Then he comes to town for a concert, but alas, Agnes can’t afford the price of the ticket. Can circumstances possibility collide to make her dream come true?
Anjelica Huston gives a flawless performance as Agnes. With that perfect Irish accent (Huston spent much of her childhood in Ireland), she sustains the role and keeps it interesting. She plays Agnes with a lilt in her step and a genteel easiness that tempers her aggressive side. Not only does Huston dominate the screen, but she’s also the movie’s producer and director.
Things might seem to happen too easily to this poverty-plagued, widowed mother of seven. At times, plot situations left me feeling that it was all a little too contrived. If you can suspend disbelief, “Agnes Brown” is worth a look. After all, good people just get lucky sometimes.
All available in DVD and VideoIndex to Previous Articles
This site has been visited times.