The grief of family loss, coupled with the transition of the lead character in work, is the backbone of the new Irish drama RIALTO.
Amidst the recent trauma of losing his father, Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) has been employed by the same Dublin shipping firm since he left school for three decades and is at a management position. He lives the comfortable life with his wife Claire (Monica Dolan), son Shane (Scott Graham) and daughter Kerry (Sophie Jo Wasson).
However, storms are brewing on both a personal and professional level at the outset when an illicit dalliance with a young man in a shopping mall toilet, Jay (Tom Glynn-Carney) – a young man with a baby daughter – leads to paid solicited sex. After the initial encounter, Jay turns up at his office and threatens to blackmail him for money, forcing Colm to meet him later at an agreed spot.
Colm finds enlightenment, even at a point when he job is declared untenable by the firm he works for due to a merger with a foreign company, who just want to move on with the ‘combination of two best practices’ – and his relationship with Jay begins to evolve behind the back of his family and workers. However, Colm’s increased drinking in the shadow of redundancy begins to affect his judgement – and a few hard home truths have to be faced….
Directed by Peter Mackie-Burns and adapted from his own stage play ‘TRADE’ by Mark O’Halloran, RIALTO is a very reflective assessment on the ambiguity of love between generations and the hard honesty that people have to confront when certain personal issues bring themselves to the fore. As with Ang Lee’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, there is a far more complex balance between Colm and Jay that is not dissimilar to the bond that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal feel amidst their seeming comfort zones with their other halves.
The sex scenes are handled with restraint and sensitivity (used as a key narrative drive rather than as a purely exploitative one) and the film could well be the sort of backdrop that Ken Loach has used in many of his more recent films like I, DANIEL BLAKE amongst others. Performances are exceptional, with both Vaughan-Lawlor and Glynn Carney capturing the frustrated uncertainty of two characters who have more than enough in their lives without bringing in each other’s own sexual and spiritual needs.
RIALTO is both heartening and heart-breaking – and anyone who has ever gone through the process of redundancy will certainly be tugging at their own heart strings when watching this admirable film.
Where can I see this ???
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