Vignette films are wonderful things. Ever since I saw my first one, Todd Haynes’s Poison, I have enjoyed the infinite possibilities involved in cinematic short fiction. Writer-director Liam Ó Móchain’s Abode considers five different expressions of home and what it means to people. Each segment of this dramatic anthology is each built around strong central characters.
The five vignettes explore the ways people live these days. You have Carol (Marion O’Dwyer) living rough outside Benedict’s (Liam Ó Móchain) restaurant. Her story takes place over Christmas. It’s fascinating, gentle reader, to see how Christmas customs vary across the world. Whereas we in America range in holiday greetings from the banal “Holidays” to the direct “Merry Christmas,” the Irish seem to gravitate to simply “Happy Christmas.” Carol’s story is the sort of thing you’d expect from anybody on Christmas, regardless of whether they’re homeless or not. Everyone across the world during the winter holiday seeks a dinner, preferably with friends and family. Carol is no different. What changes is how she arranges her dinner, and who attends. This was an especially sweet short story, dealing with the theme of loss at the holidays.
Then you have Peggy (Mary McEvoy). Peggy and her son own a corner shop. Every so often, regardless of whether she likes it or not, Peggy plays host to Red (Brendan Conroy), an aging suitor of hers. These sporadic visitations vex her son. However, Peggy and Red seem to have great fun whenever he turns up.
“…considers five different expressions of home and what it means to people.”
Abode then introduces us to Molly (Rosemary Henderson), who is driving her family insane. On the day of a church-arranged reunion, she’s trying to corral her husband Frank Sr. (Donncha Crowley) and her two kids, Frank Jr. (Karl Argue) and Patricia (Lynette Callaghan), to be there on time. It’s slightly more somber than the prior entrants, and beautifully led by Henderson as the matriarch.
Skyler (Gail Brady) and Sam’s (Matthew O’Brien) tale focuses on the complications of acquiring home appliances that are smarter than you. This is a real problem that has developed over the past decade, in which stores provide “smart” appliances with Wi-Fi connections. Why an oven needs to be voice-activated, I’ve no clue. The gentle humor of this segment is most delightful. I especially enjoyed the debate on whether or not to name the voice that interacts with them whilst governing the smart oven. Absolutely relevant material, watching Skyler and Sam’s lives become co-opted by this smart appliance they bring into their home.
In the last vignette, Conor (Stephen Jones) and Maria (Mary Murray) are intent on having a child-free weekend by the sea. The film gently and sweetly focuses on the neuroses that develop when you finally get away from your dependents and have to figure out what to do with your free time. As with all these stories, this plays out in a sweet and unpredictable way. Such is the way people’s lives are.
Abode is a consummate slice-of-life film. If you’re in the market for a sweet, gentle film with decidedly unexpected zigs and zags, this anthology is for you. Ó Móchain has crafted five tales that relate to each other in subtle ways. And if one is looking for a film to offset the bombast of most other recent releases, this fits that bill nicely.
"…a sweet, gentle film..."
