ROSE PLAYS JULIE
Rose-tinted Julie (Ann Skelly).
★★★★
OUT 17 SEPTEMBER CERT 15 / 100 MINS
DIRECTORS Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor
CAST Ann Skelly, Orla Brady, Aidan Gillen
PLOT Rose (Skelly), a veterinarian in training, has recently found out she was adopted and has discovered the identity of her birth mother Ellen (Brady), a successful TV actor. Rose tracks her down, and begins to demand the story of her past.
THE OPENING OF Rose Plays Julie implies something a little bit more wistful than what its sombre subject matter ultimately delivers. “I think about you all the time, when we’ll first meet,” its eponymous protagonist Rose (Ann Skelly) muses. But the stark imagery immediately suggests something obsessive rather than longing. Writer-directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy’s deliberate obfuscations are clear from the start, as a lecture Rose sits in on is interrupted by flashes of what seems to be a dream, before revealing it’s actually imagery from a TV show Rose has been watching. It soon becomes clear ‘Ellen Wise’, an actor in that work, is Rose’s biological mother, who Rose begins to cyber-stalk. Learning that Ellen is selling her house, Rose poses as a buyer (breaking a no-contact clause in her adoption papers), before revealing her identity.