SIFF Review: Ondine

A White Tank Top Movie Review

Neil Jordan’s Ondine is presented as modern fairy tale of a man, Syracuse (Colin Farrell), who finds a selkie, Ondine (Alicja Bachleda), in his fishing nets.  His daughter, Annie (Alison Barry), teaches him that the selkie is a creature of the sea that can take off her seal coat and live with humans. This is nice, quaint premise for a film.

I detect quite another fantasy at work though. Say you’re a down-on-his-luck fisherman of about 35 years with a precocious daughter who’s confined to a wheelchair because of kidney trouble.  Say you’ve broken off with her mother because she drinks too much and you’ve gotten on the wagon yourself. Then, from the depths of the sea, you pull out a woman as gorgeous as Alicja Bachleda and she’s practically obligated to sleep with you, sing lobsters into your pots and cheer your daughter. Did I mention that this woman, a selkie after all, also insists on constantly swimming around in her lingerie? In other words, Ondine seems a particular kind of male fantasy. And I want to know where can I sign up for Syracuse’s life.

Read the full review after the jump.

As an unapologetic Colin Farrell fan, I was glad to see him relying on his usual appeal here: thick knitted brows, stubbled good looks and world-weary charm. He has a rather stunned chemistry with his real-life baby mamma Bachleda, but who wouldn’t? She’s hard to put a finger on — I suppose her accent is supposed to be Romanian (she’s actually a Mexican-born Pole), though Annie thinks she’s French.The selkie hymn that Ondine sings to bring in the fishes sounds so much like a Sigur Rós song that it turns out to be a Sigur Rós song. 

Director Jordan is Irish all the way though and imbues this film with his typical dry humor. Syracuse is called “Circus” by all the townspeople and even his daughter tells him the stories he tells are “shite.”

Upon meeting Ondine, Annie takes her hand and charmingly explains that she’s examining the fingers for webs. Stephen Rea has a nice turn as Syracuse’s priest/AA sponsor, resignedly telling him to say a few Hail Marys as he leaves the church for more sinning. I also chuckled at the visual joke of Ondine trying on fishnet stockings, the trappings of life on land.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who is best known for his work with Wong Kar-Wai, seems caught between two modes in Ondine. Most of the shots are straightforward presentations of characters amidst the blues and greys of coastal Ireland. At times of high drama, however, Doyle constructs wobbly frames that are jagged and leached of almost all color. The grittiness feels a little forced for a story that’s so decidedly whimsical. I wish Jordan had directed Doyle to gather more details of the lovely small town, Castletownbere, where the action takes place — the town square and docks are seen only in fleeting instances.

While the other selkie tale by a prominent director (John Sayles’ The Secret of Roan Inish) is content to leave the existence of supernatural seal-people an open question, Jordan explains away Ondine’s appearance in the last third of the film. Without spoilers I can say that the true story of her appearance in Castletownbere is just as implausible as the myth. 

I’d prefer to be left with the impression that there is a selkie out there for all of us.