An Everlasting Piece

I never would have expected that the best new movie I would see at the Virginia Film Festival would be the one movie that going in I had never heard of. It was presented here for one of the first times ever. The film isn't quite finished yet as there are no credits attached and a few rough cuts. The roughness mattered not at all as this was delightful and refreshing film.

It was introduced by producer Mark Johnson (Diner, Rain Man) who said he found it when the writer/actor Barry McEvoy was performing a reading of the script. Johnson thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard and quickly set about getting it made.

The story is about two men living in Belfast in Northern Ireland during the mid-80s. Colm is a Catholic barber starting a new job working at a mental hospital. George is a Protestant barber already working there. The two hit it off quickly and are soon telling each other wild tales. One day they see an inmate the guards affectionately call "The Scalper." He used to be a highly successful toupee salesman until one day he snapped and scalped four of his customers. They discover that he had a monopoly on the hairpiece market in Belfast and still has the list of his customers, now unserviced for several years.

The pair think this could be their ticket to easy riches and set about talking The Scalper out of his list. Successful they quickly get a starter kit of instructions and a sample wig. With Colm's girlfriend's assistance they start trying to sell their wares. Before long they realize that they have competition. A new company called "Toupee Or Not Toupee" has set up business, using the same hairpiece supplier as our heroes. This sets up a competition in which the company that sells the most rugs by the end of the year gets the local monopoly from the supplier.

This of course all sounds rather silly and it is. The movie is very funny with the laughs coming fast and furious. But this movie has a serious side too. Set during one of the ugliest periods of tension between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, the movie does not ignore the political and social issues of the period at all. Since Colm is Catholic and George is Protestant, no matter where they go in the city one of them is in danger. There were no mixed neighborhoods at all, they were either entirely Catholic or Protestant. The movie opens on a shot of a lonely building, sitting in an open area in the city but against the "peace wall" which separated the neighborhoods. A large fence surrounds the house on three sides and even covers the roof. A sign appears on screen that explains it is to protect the house against firebombs. Nice way to live, don't you think? This is Colm's family's house.

The director, Barry Levinson, never lets you forget the tensions in the country. Almost every scene with a big laugh is punctuated with a shot of heavily armed British troops patrolling the streets or a mural on a wall. The murals are brutal images of Irish Republican Army terrorists or messages refusing the notion of Irish rule. It is hard to imagine living under these conditions. It doesn't resemble a community so much as a war zone. Part of the story revolves around a search for IRA terrorists by British forces. They ruthlessly pick up every single bald man in the city because they know the terrorist was wearing a toupee. This is no way to live.

Oddly enough, the movie will probably play equally well to Irish, British, Catholic and Protestant audiences. All parties are treated equally and fairly. The movie takes a hard look at the tensions between the groups but never takes sides. That's good because this is first and foremost a comedy. It makes a point of asserting that regardless of religious or political leaning, everybody in it is a person. Members of the IRA are frightening until they feel they can switch modes and suddenly they are normal folks and not necessarily bright ones. Some of the best laughs are from the deadpan reactions to truly bizarre events.

The movie opens up Christmas day. I'll understand if you don't go opening day as I imagine many of you have plans but as soon as you get past those plans make sure to catch it.

- John Shea