Misty-eyed dose of picaresque diaspora

There’s a difference between emotion and emotionalism, between sentiment and sentimentality, between pathos and bathos. Unfortunately, Morgan Matthews’ 500 Miles (12A) loses out on all three counts.

If Maeve Binchy was still with us, it’s the kind of thing she’d probably be penning, giving us an Ireland that’s not so much the way we see ourselves as the way other countries see us – or maybe filmmakers with an eye for the quick buck.

It’s not quite Begob and Begorrah, more “Arrah sure lookit.”

We’ve got a dote of a granddad, Irishman Bill Nighy (good accent, by the way), who’s into art and sailing. His wife has dementia. She’s a dote too.

Then there’s the daughter, Clare Dunne, annoyed with grandad for reasons that later become clear, her British hubbie, Michael Socha, and their sons Finn (Roman Griffin Davis) and Charlie (Dexter Sol Ansell). Charlie is a laugh a minute. He suffers from asthma just to make us love him all the more.

Their happiest times were on their holliers with granddad in Dingle in years gone by. When their parents talk of divorce, they do a dawn flit from the family home in Sheffield to visit him.

It’s 500 miles away. (Title spoiler!) Not only do they get to see granddad but also Fungie the dolphin, Ireland’s best tourist attraction since the Book of Kells.

En route to Holyhead, Finn and Charlie run into Good Samaritan ukelele player Cáit (Maisie Williams). She does her best to hibernicise Finn, even telling him how to make money the Irish way when you’re strapped, i.e. whip out your ukelele and pass the proverbial hat around. “Going out of our way to help tourists,” she trills, “is kind of our superpower.”

The film goes into weepie territory in the last quarter but whether you’re called on to laugh or cry you can’t help feeling your reactions are being manipulated at every turn. It’s a bit like emotional pornography.

At a time when Fís is in such a healthy state it’s a pity to see a film dragging us back into the Synge-song swamps of shamroguery like this one does, tapping into a pre-Riverdance Ireland.

Backing tracks like The Foggy Dew and The Rocky Road to Dubbelin make you feel you’re in the Abbey Tavern in the seventies listening to the Wolfe Tones strutting their stuff to the blue rinse brigade as they clutch clutching Kerry thatches under their oxters and order pints of Uncle Arthur from the counter to, er, beat the band.

Back in the days of The Quiet Man and suchlike, 500 Miles might have gone down well with George and Martha on a trip from the US back to ‘the old country.’ Maybe it still will. But natives will see it as a picture postcard depiction of ‘Oirland’.

Be thankful we don’t get Charlie piggy-backing Fungie to Belmullet in the last reel to the backdrop of the Wolfies cranking out A Nation Once Again.