Kenny Ireland Movies

Peter Greenaway wrote and directed this typically surreal and iconoclastic black comedy. Three generations of women who share the same name -- 63-year-old Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright), her daughter Cissie Colpitts II (Juliet Stevenson), and granddaughter Cissie Colpitts III (Joely Richardson) -- have all discovered the same way of dealing with their marital problems. The senior Cissie has drowned her husband Jake (Bryan Pringle) in the bathtub, her daughter sent her spouse Hardy (Trevor Cooper) to a watery grave in the ocean, and the youngest Cissie sent her husband Bellamy (David Morrissey) down in a swimming pool. Needless to say, local coroner Henry Madgett (Barnard Hill) has some questions about this sudden rash of drownings among the Colpitts husbands, and again all three women respond in the same way: they promise to sleep with Henry in exchange for recording the deaths as accidental (though none of the Cissies make good on this promise). When the local gossip mill begins working overtime about this sudden rash of water-related deaths, Henry's teenage son Smut (Jason Edwards) comes to the aid of the Cissies and organizes a tug-of-war, with he and the Colpitts women on one side and the doubting townspeople on the other (and, of course, a river in the middle). Along the way, Greenaway often stops to contemplate his obsessions with literature, astronomy, and numbers. Drowning by Numbers was released in Europe in 1988, but didn't find its way to American screens until 1991, following the success of Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The first directorial effort of British screenwriter Paul Greengrass, Resurrected is based on a true story that came to light during the Falklands War. David Thewlis plays an Army private who, after being listed as missing and presumed dead, wanders back into camp, a victim of amnesia. The army, embarrassed at the situation and not fully believing the boy's story, downplays Thewlis' return. His British home town had planned to give him a hero's welcome, but a newspaper story has intimated that the boy was a deserter. The general consensus is that it would have been better if Thewlis had really died, thus saving his neighbors from embarrassment. With no one, not even his parents, willing to believe the amnesia story, Thewlis is persona non grata, and to add to his troubles he is severely beaten by several of his former army buddies. An ironic coda caps this unpleasant glimpse at the darker side of human nature. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After a brief introduction by J.M. Barrie (Alec McCowen) and shots of the young Daisy Ashford (Carina Radford) working on a book, this children's fantasy film about the aristocracy in England at the end of the 19th century begins its surreal journey. Comedian Tracey Ullman plays Ethel Monticue, a woman who must decide between two suitors: the suave and worldly Bernard Clark (John Harding) or the clod Alfred (Kenny Ireland), sent off to London to learn how to become a gentleman. Unreal sequences, such as entering the chambers of the aristocratic elite through caverns, or a train that is really a horse stable, take the narrative of the film away from logic and into the fantasy of a child's imagination. Ullman and Ireland are excellent as the comic Ethel and Alfred, and in general this make-believe tale is one that could be appreciated by parents as well as children. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Jeremy Irons portrays Nowak, one of four Polish laborers, living in England. In exchange for a place to stay, Irons and his buddies -- none of whom have British work permits -- agree to renovate their landlord's flat within a limited time-frame. Despite their hectic schedule, the boys agree never to work on Sunday: this is the day that they communicate with their loved ones in Poland. On one such Sunday, however, the Soviets declare martial law in Poland, cutting off all telephone and telegraph service to the outside world. Nowak, the only one of the four who speaks English, learns of the turmoil in Poland before his friends do; he decides to keep the news secret, rather than jeopardize their living arrangements. When the flow of money from home ceases, Nowak takes to stealing to finance the renovation project. He pushes his friends mercilessly to make sure the project is completed on time, secretly burning their letters so that they remain in the dark about the Soviet incursion upon their native soil. When they do find out, they physically vent their anger upon Nowak, perceiving him to be as much an enemy and oppressor as the Soviets. This is clearly the allegorical point that director Jerzy Skolimowski is hoping to make in Moonlighting; wisely, he avoids conveying his message in fluent tract, relating his story with generous doses of humor and irony. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi