Aspiring actor Mark (Mark Doherty, also the film's screenwriter) has pretty much hit rock bottom. He has just endured yet another fruitless audition, and his girlfriend Sally (Amy Huberman) is about to discover that, due to his penury, he has not been paying the rent for several months. Sally can't understand why their landlord, Jack (Keith Allen), doesn't do the very long list of repairs required to make their increasingly ramshackle apartment more habitable. Mark knows that Sally will ask Jack as soon as she sees him, and that Jack will tell her the truth. This also means that their little cobbled-together family, which includes Mark's paralyzed brother David (David Doherty) and their dog Jersey, will be out on the street.
As he does with all things, Mark confides in his best friend and upstairs neighbour Pierce (Dylan Moran of Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and Shaun of the Dead), another shiftless aspirant who doesn't have two nickels. Pierce does, however, have a more than passing affection for time spent in the pub. The only thing he has to offer Mark is yet another round of inflated, dreamy rhetoric about their limitless yet unrecognized talent.
Mark's fate takes an even harsher turn for the worse. A series of completely unforeseen events, all of which take place over the course of one dreadful day, moves the film into a completely new realm. Reeling from these events, Mark calls on Pierce for help, and soon two of the most hapless, misguided characters onscreen this year set off to solve their myriad problems. To reveal more of the plot would rob audiences of the sheer delight (and admittedly, some jaw-dropping horror) of watching these two beer-soaked, self-centred slackers try to handle a really, really bad situation.
Farcical, ironic and darkly funny, A Film with Me in It contains tonal nods to Withnail and I and Shallow Grave, and pushes the boundaries of irony to its limits. While the overall plot drives along at a good clip, director Ian FitzGibbon allows time for these two highly adept actors to create wonderful moments of character-driven humour that are just as fulfilling as the screechingly funny tale they inhabit.
Jane Schoettle
Ian FitzGibbon was born in Dublin and raised in Belgium. He returned to Dublin to study languages at Trinity College before being accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After several years of acting, he wrote and directed the short film
Between Dreams (99). He has written and directed for several television series, including
Paths to Freedom and
Be More Ethnic. He made his feature directing debut with
Spin the Bottle (03).
A Film with Me in It (08) is his latest film.