Waking Ned is a likeable comedy made worth an evening by Ian Bannen and David Kelly. Kirk Jones pushes the village charm too hard, but the two leads bring enough mischief to stop it turning entirely cosy.
Waking Ned is a good-natured comedy worth an evening for Ian Bannen and David Kelly, provided we can forgive a village that works rather hard at being lovable. Kirk Jones writes and directs with an affection for greedy people that gives the film its appeal. The plotting is thin, and the charm occasionally becomes a nuisance. But the leading pair make the prospect of spending 91 minutes with two avaricious old men considerably more attractive than it sounds.
Ian Bannen gives Jackie O’Shea an energy that prevents his avarice feeling merely sour. David Kelly, as Michael O’Sullivan, gives the partnership an ease that the plotting cannot supply. We believe in these men as company for one another before being asked to find them funny. Their exchanges have the familiarity of people who know how much nonsense they can get away with, and who have little incentive to stop. They are the main reason the dialogue lands.
We laughed at the nude motorcycling. The indignity is so blunt that it briefly frees the film from its own effort to be endearing, and the joke needs no speech about the pleasures of village life. This willingness to look foolish helps, as does the occasional darkness of the humour. Kirk Jones is not making a comedy of exemplary behaviour, and the men’s appetite for money gives the geniality something usefully grubby to work with.
Henry Braham’s cinematography and John Ebden’s production design make the village easy to like, perhaps too easy. The place has the cosy appeal the comedy wants, but there are stretches when that appeal is doing work the writing ought to do. We need enough particularity in the people to stop an Irish village becoming a collection of amusing locals. The film gets this from its central pair more reliably than from the ensemble.
Alan Strachan’s editing leaves the comedy at an easy pace, which suits the leading pair. It is less helpful when Kirk Jones’s script runs short of incident: there is time to notice how little is happening. Shaun Davey’s score supplies warmth, occasionally more than these performances need. When the film is already pressing its welcome quite hard, the music can feel like another request to settle in.
Some of the villagers remain collections of quirks, and the insistence on Irish eccentricity can become tiresome. That limits the sense of community on which this sort of comedy depends. The writing gives us reasons to recognise these people quickly without always giving us reasons to take much interest in them. Kirk Jones has a persuasive central partnership, but the supporting characters do not all benefit from the same attention.
This belongs to the gentler end of ensemble comedy, where spending time with the characters is a substantial part of the pleasure. There is enough mischief to keep the friendliness from becoming oppressive, though not enough invention to make every stretch equally enjoyable. We would not choose it for a night that needs constant laughter. Choose it when two elderly men being cheerfully greedy sound like company worth keeping.
