Saltwater
Synopsis
For Frank Beneventi - an anally retentive twenty-something who nags and fusses over his dad as if they were man and wife - Saltwater is the story of his emancipation. Desperate to rescue his father from the jaws of local loan shark Simple Simon, Frank calls upon internal resources of courage and complete stupidity to pull of an 'armed' heist which changes his life forever.
Joe
Four years after the death of their mother, Frank's younger brother Joe is still very much grieving. Of the Beneventi children, sixteen-year-old Joe feels his mother's absence the deepest. Bored and unhappy at school, he's easy prey for another lost teen: Damien Fitzgibbon, a destructive and damaged boy with his own demons. Joe is thrilled by Damien's antics. The he stumbles across his new friend having sex with an unconscious girl in a graveyard.
Ray
Ray, meanwhile, is in love with the boys' older sister Carmel Beneventi. And embroiled in a passionate fling with Debbie, a shapely blonde student with a fondness for knee-high boots. Carmel - and her family - represent a day-to-day reality that Ray's arcane university job never comes close to touching: the Beneventis are a world away from the whiny students and horny academics of his day-job. But it's not until an eminent philosopher arrives at the university and Ray has a run in with one of Debbie's desperate suitors that he has to make some hard choices about where his live is going. And who he's going to take with him.
Saltwater is the coming-of-age story of three very different men. Through a robbery, a rape and a really terrible hangover Frank, Joe and Ray learn things about themselves that they probably didn't want to know. And nothing, as they tend to say, will be the same again.
Details
- Year
- 2000
- Type of film
- Features
- Running time
- 94 mins
- Format
- 35mm
- Director
-
Conor McPherson
- Producer
- David M Thomson, Rod Stoneman
- Executive Producer
- David M Thomson, Rod Stoneman
- Editor
- Emer Reynolds
- Screenwriter
- Conor McPherson
- Director of Photography
- Oliver Curtis
- Principal cast
- Peter McDonald, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Treasure Films Contact: Emma Richardson Shamrock Chambers 1-2 Eustace Street Dublin 2 Ireland Tel: 00 353 1 670 9609 Fax: 00 3531 670 9612
Sales Company
The Works 4 Great Portland Street London W1W 8QJ Tel: 020 7612 1080 Fax: 020 7612 1081 joy@theworksltd.com
Page updates
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Saltwater
Director: Conor McPherson
Year: 2000
Award-winning playwright Conor McPherson steps behind the camera for the first time with Saltwater, a tale of ordinary folk in extraordinary circumstances. In an out-of-season coastal town in Ireland, the local chippie is on the verge of going under. Ever since his mother's death, Frank (Peter McDonald) has been helping his father (Brian Cox) hold the fort. But dad is in hock to the local bookie and loan shark (Brendan Gleeson) so Frank takes matters into his own hands and robs the bookie. Needless to say, things don't quite go as planned.<br /> <br /> Inspired by a dream McPherson had several years ago, the film began as a stage play called This Lime Tree Bower, which took the form of a series of monologues from the three main characters: Frank, his younger brother Joe, who feels his mother's absence the most, and Ray, a university tutor who is in love with the brothers' older sister. <br /> <br /> McPherson then teamed up with producer Robert Walpole, who, along with his directing partner Paddy Breathnach, had turned his first screenplay, I Went Down, into an award-winning hit film. Saltwater went into production just as McPherson's acclaimed play The Weir was earning raves on Broadway in New York.<br /> <br /> The film world-premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival in February where audience reaction was favourable. It had its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July and will open in Ireland through Buena Vista in September.
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