CAR TROUBLE (JOYRIDE)

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We've become so used to Olivia Colman just acing it onscreen, it's hard to fathom her giving a below par performance.

It has always seemed like Colman, who has graduated from being Britain's favourite actress after 'Broadchurch' to becoming an Oscar regular, just has to turn up to enliven a film.

Following her surprise Best Actress Oscar win for 'The Favourite', it has become plausible to think she could turn up onscreen and read the ingredients of a mustard jar, making it somehow compelling.

That is until now.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

None of us could have imagined the struggles she would have in Emer Reynolds' Irish road movie 'Joyride' - an absolute pig's arse of a film that makes about as much sense as Philip Glass collaborating with Daniel O'Donnell.

Colman plays Joy, a Co Kerry solicitor who is grieving the recent loss of her mother while also suffering from post-natal depression.

Joy is so overcome with grief and stress, she wants to sell her baby.

Charlie Reid is Andrew 'Mully' Mulligan, a precocious teen who has lost his mum too to cancer and sings 'Mini the Moocher' at a fundraising gig in memory of his mother.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

Mully is saddled with a feckless dad, played by Lochlann O Mearain, who uses the fundraiser to line his own pockets.

Appalled by this, Mully swipes the cash and is pursued by his dad, jumping behind the wheel of a taxi and driving off.

Sleeping in the back seat of the taxi, however, is the vodka addled Joy and her crying baby daughter who Mully is able to calm down.

Switching the taxi for another vehicle stolen from a second hand car dealer's, Mully strikes his own deal with Joy that if he gets her to Drimoleague so she can catch a flight to Lanzarote (yeah, I know..), he can have the car.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

Mully's dad is, however, determined to track them down and in phone calls he tries to reassure the boy all will be okay if he just returns with the wad of euros.

Meanwhile the mismatched travelling companions bicker on the road and they bond over Mully's way with the baby.

A redbreasted robin also keeps turning up to keep an eye on them as they amble though Kerry, getting into all kinds of scrapes while running from the law.

During proceedings, Tommy Tiernan turns up as a kind hearted ferryman who serenades them on a tin whistle with his version of the theme from the Australian soap 'Home and Away' - no, seriously.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

But this is typical of a film that frequently veers into the weirdest of territory.

'Joyride' is spectacularly poor, giving another terrible Irish road movie 'The Last Right' a real run for its money.

A road movie devoid of laughs or high drama, 'Thelma and Louise,' 'Badlands' or 'Lamb' it ain't.

In fact, the most notable thing about Reynolds' film is the rather bizarre impression it gives of Co Kerry being about the size of Texas.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

Reynolds' movie also features some frankly bizarre sequences - including Mully guiding Joy how to breast feed and then later rather creepily discussing the quality of her boobs.

Neither the dialogue nor the characters are credible, with Reynolds and her cast failing to mine anything meaningful out of Ailbhe Keogan's consistently feeble script.

Colman looks uncharacteristically lost for much of the film - struggling with her generic Irish accent and an even wobblier script.

In her quest for an accent, she wisely avoids going the full Healy-Rae on us.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

Reid is handed the most irritating part given to a teenage actor for many's a year.

He can do little with it.

Meanwhile O Mearain lacks sufficient menace as Mully's dad and is a rather bleached out villain.

Tiernan's is  just one of a series of bizarre supporting roles handed out to decent Irish character actors like Ruth McCabe, David Pearse, Aisling O'Sullivan, Aislin McGuckin, Florence Adebambo and Olwen Fouere.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

Not everything is terrible, though.

James Mather deserves applause for his cinematography which really captures the beauty of the Kerry countryside.

However the most frustrating thing about watching Reynolds' hugely contrived film is that there is potentially a decent drama to be crafted out of Joy's post natal depression.

It just gets lost in all the glibness.

© Vertigo Releasing & Magnolia Pictures

'Joyride' should be much better than this.

Unfortunately it is anything but a joy to watch.

In fact, it's a depressing waste of Colman's considerable talent and its audience's precious time.

And that is a crying shame.

('Joyride' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on July 29, 2022 and in US cinemas on December 23, 2022)

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