The Lesson is DANCE FIRST

 

Jeri Jacquin

Coming from director James Marsh and Magnolia Pictures is the telling of a life that reminds us to DANCE FIRST.

Samuel Beckett (Caleb Johnston-Miller) is a young boy living with over bearing mother May (Lisa Dwyer Hogg) and supportive loving father William (Barry O’Connor). Reaching his late teen years and hearing how everything affected only her, Samuel (Fionn O’Shea) decides that leaving is the best thing he could possibly do. His goal them becomes to meet the one writer that has affected him the most, James Joyce (Aidan Gillen).

Working with Joyce on translations, he has an amazing friendship with Alfred Peron (Robert Aramayo) and a love affair with Suzanne (Leonie Lojkine). Soon problems with Joyce’s family become dangerous and the war breaks out sending Samuel out to do his part with the French Resistance. After the war, Samuel (Gabriel Byrne) and Suzanne (Sandrine Bonnaire) work together to bring his work to the world.

When Samuel meets translator Barbara Bray (Maxine Peake) and a love affair begins as she brings reason to his work. Trying to live in a writer’s world, Samuel writes what he knows and looks back on his life riddled with questions. Suzanne wants to him live in a struggling world and pushes guilt as his writing finally brings awards. In his life, he knows the conversations that need to be had, but only within himself.

Byrne as the elder Samuel is absolutely stunning in this role. As a man who is dealing with his own inner demons, he has to take stock of where he came from and how it all finds its way into his work. Watching Bryne’s Beckett struggle with his own duality is a sight to see and his delivery of emotion is so strong that I was taken in immediately. What a challenge that he has taken on brilliantly.

Bonnaire as elder Suzanne has been with Samuel since the war and became intertwined in his work. As the years progressed, Bonnaire’s Suzanne became hard and he begins to see someone from his past reemerging. I’m not actually sure how I feel about this Suzanne but if it was to also see a familiar attitude then Bonnaire pulls it off.  

O’Shea as Samuel is just so well done front his young man years until the change to Byrne. The following of Joyce, the craziness that almost cost him everything and the struggle of war, O’Shea sets the groundwork of his life and the words that come from it. Aramayo as Alfred, although a smaller role, is poignant in the life of Samuel Beckett. Clearly the friendship meant everything and the impact was strong. Aramayo’s portrayal of Alfred was so endearing.

Peake as Barbara is immediately struck by Beckett and feels strongly about his work. Wanting to help him succeed in the literary world, she is also someone key to his life. Peake’s character doesn’t rock the boat or insert herself but instead has a place in his life that no one can touch. I truly enjoyed the strong role Peake plays because she has a sense of herself that is powerful in its own right.

Other cast include Bronagh Gallagher as Nora, Caroline Boulton as Sylvia Beach, Grainne Good as Lucia Joyce, Andrew Hefler as Leon, Julia Szasz as Mania, and Szabolcs Kelemen as Prudent.

Magnolia Pictures is responsible for such releases as SLAY THE DRAGON, JOHN LEWIS: Good Trouble, the crime thriller THE WHISTLERS, documentaries such as THE PIECES I AM and films such as the directorial debut of Italian filmmaker Filippo Meneghetti. For more of what they have to offer please visit www.magpictures.com. 

DANCE FIRST is an absolute thrill of a film done in black and white that embraces the era of Beckett’s memory of his life. From the events of his childhood, interaction with his parents that caused him to make early life decisions, discovering those he admired had a magazine rack full of issues of their own to the price to be paid for fame is all brilliantly done in this telling.

Beckett’s emotions come through in so many ways and that is all thanks to O’Shea and Byrne. These two actors (and it’s not because I have an Irish background either!) seem to embrace the story of this writer with such intensity and longing to make things right. When the elder Beckett is given moments of reflection, no one else could have done it better than Byrne.

Samuel Beckett is most noted for Waiting for Godot, Molloy, Dream of Fair to Middling Women as well as the trilogy, non-fiction, novels, short prose, poetry, translation works, cinema, radio and theatre. Take a moment to look up his work and you will see that DANCE FIRST is a stunning look at an extraordinary life.

In the end – in life always dance first!