Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

"Snapper" is apparently an Irish term for a baby (like "nipper"). The Snapper was the second novel of Roddy Doyle's very slangy dialogue-driven "Barrytown Trilogy," following The Commitments, preceding The Van.

The movie Alan Parker directed of The Commitments in 1991 was a critical and commercial success (though not a megahit like "Midnight Express" was). The 1990 novel and its 1993 adaptation (by Doyle) of The Snapper is "kitchen-sink realism" rather than about forming a group and making music. It strikes me as similar to Mike Leigh movies, except funnier and set in North Dublin. It was, however, directed by Stephen Frears.

The neighborhood looks less slummy than in Parker's movie or the London of Frears's "My Beautiful Laundrette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid," and the milieu is placider, too.

Colm Meaney (O'Brien in various "Star Trek's) returns as Dessie, the father of six (the family renamed Curley). The oldest daughter, Sharon (Tina Kellegher), who works in a grocery store that is less than a supermarket announces that she is pregnant. Dessie insists that she not move out. He is not particularly dismayed that she is having a child out of wedlock, but is irritated that she won't reveal who the father is.

She says the father is not married, but he is. Not just married and a neighbor, but--to Dessie's disgust--older than Dessie.

Everyone had been sympathetic to Sharon before news of her baby's paternity got out. She is shunned and insulted not for getting pregnant but for doing so with an older married man, who is regarded as an "ejit" (idiot)... so she makes up the tale that she was knocked up by a visiting Spanish sailor when she was too drunk even to get his name.

Dessie finds this story implausible, but he has become Sharon's champion and cooperates in defending her claim, even as the real father several times attempts to help her. She has Dad and doesn't need him.

Dessie sits with soon-to-be-fathers in the hospital. Once the baby is born, he goes to a pub, crowing "Seven pounds, twelve ounces" (the weight of Doyle's first child, BTW). And old man at the pub who looks like Cyril Cusack asks if he's talking about a turkey or a baby. Dessie answers: "A baby," and the old man comments that that is fine for a baby but not much for a turkey. (Would I have found this less funny if I had watched the movie sometime other than the Thanksgiving weekend?)

The movie was regarded at Cannes and by critics as very funny. Roger Ebert pronounced it "exceptionally funny" and gave it 3/5/4 stars, thought that it was mildly amusing (I'm not a Mike Leigh fan...) and fairly whimsical. I guess that many consider a father taking so much interest in the details of the pregnancy that will yield his first grandchild intrinsically funny, not least in that he showed little interest in the six childbirths of his own wife (a feet-on-the-ground Ruth McCabe).

Dessie spends a lot of time at the neighborhood pub and does not pay much attention to his other children (Jimmy, the one who started "The Commitments" is off in the army). What he does to earn the money to support his large household and large pub tabs is not specified.

Unsettlingly, the pregnant Sharon packs away enough alcohol to get drunk (no concerns about fetal alcohol syndrome on her part!) at least twice and smokes like a chimney.

The whole endeavor strikes me as a foul-mouthed* Irish variant of "The Waltons," with a large family, parental wisdom, and some mildly quirky people who are not movie-star pretty (Tina Kellegher has been called "potato-faced" by others). Plus a very gossipy set of neighbors. "The Snapper" is sweet without setting my teeth on edge, but "The L-Shaped Room" is more convincing a tale of unmarried pregnancy IMHO. As good as the actors are (and they are very good indeed!), I find it hard to believe that even in post-priest-ridden Ireland, large families and premarital/extramarital pregnancies are so easy.

Frears and Doyle seem to have had an enjoyable time recording the commentary track, which is also mildly amusing and sometimes informative. They teamed up again with Meaney in the final novel of the Barrytown trilogy, "The Van" (1996). The Van was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize; Doyle's next novel, Paddy Clark, Ha Ha won it. Frears' current character-driven success is "The Queen" with Helen Mirren.

And although I prefer Katerine McPhee's, I found the cover of "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" by Lick The Tins quite fitting. Jim Diamond's "I Should Have Known Better" is even more so (after Sharon's karaoke bar binge). I didn't have occasion to mention Sharon's best friend Jackie, but want to mention that Fionnuala Murphy was very good in the part (good lines didn't hurt!).

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Doyle": "I've been criticized for the bad language in my books--that I've given a bad image of the country. There's always a subtle pressure to present a good image, and it's always somebody else's definition of what is good"


© 2006, Stephen O. Murray



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD