Review by Brad Balfour
Rose Plays Julie
directors: Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor
cast: Ann Skelly, Orla Brady, Aidan Gillen
Talk about making a film that offers a fresh take on the matter of sexual assault and its consequences. In Rose Plays Julie, a young Dublin-based college student (Ann Skelly) seeks out her birth mother, inadvertently triggering a string of events which changes her life, her birth parents and those around them.
During a term studying animal euthanasia, veterinarian-to-be Rose contacts Ellen (Orla Brady), the birth mother who gave her up for adoption. But Ellen, who is now a successful, London-based actress, wants nothing to do with her — at first. Undeterred, given that she had recently lost her adoptive mother, Rose insistently pursues Ellen. Curiosity and her need to know the circumstances that brought her into the world and led to her to be given up for adoption leads to discoveries that drives Rose to act in unexpected ways.
By delivering their performances in exacting and measured ways, Skelly and Brady takes us through the shared feelings of longing and revenge. But it’s when birth father Peter (Aidan Gillen) is introduced as Rose surreptitiously stages an encounter with him, that the film takes a decidedly darker turn and leads to a conclusion which muddies the moral waters.
Originally released in 2019, experienced Irish directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as Desperate Optimists) assuredly crafted a thriller more relevant than ever which builds a sense of dread through small, fractured gestures that sometimes jar, shock and repulse. Favoring muted reaction over dialogue forces audiences to insert themselves into the proceedings. While Rose Plays Julie defies genres to stir response, it’s a film that forcefully addresses a difficult subject matter, and as a result, is difficult to watch. But watch we must do.