Lost in Translation
Ted Sheehy on the doubled-edged sword of Hiberno-English.

At the outset let me agree – it’s a pat title for an article that ponders the amalgam of culture, language and cinema that joins and separates Ireland and North America. In my defense I offer this relevancy – Lost in Translation was the biggest distribution success for UK/Ireland distributor Momentum Pictures until its acquisition P.S. I Love You hit the screens last December.

P.S. I Love You is that curiosity – an ‘Irish’ film that is not an Irish film. It’s a sort of The Quiet Man for the 21st Century, an Irish story given a us re-tread and sold back to us as one of our own. And, like The Quiet Man, we have lapped it up despite the critics.

At the time of writing, the film adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s novel has earned €13,777,350 in the UK/Ireland area. The film has also taken $51,972,231 in North America for Warner Brothers. It may be relevant to its success there that the action in the novel is mostly transposed to the US, but with a brief sojourn in Ireland which necessitated a fortnight’s shoot here. By contrast, an actual Irish film, Once, with a total production cost less than that of P.S. I Love You’s two-week stint in Ireland, took just shy of $10m in North America. Once is the opposite of P.S. I Love You – it is an Irish film that is not an ‘Irish’ film.

So where am I going with this? Bear with me, here’s some more information: To date P.S. I Love You has taken €3,013,199 in Ireland. Whereas Irish films (films produced in Ireland that is) earned a grand total of €1,967,506 at the Irish box office in 2007. That is less than 1.5% of the total Irish box office (€145,536,799), which grew by 7% during the year.

Becoming Euros
Figures for individual Irish film releases in 2007 are: Becoming Jane, €441,486. Garage, €305,952. Once, €272,559. Shrooms, €245,141. Strength and Honour, €234,184. The Ugly Duckling & Me, €188,597. How About You, €135,000. Kings, €86,000. Speed Dating, €44,264. Small Engine Repair, €14,323. We could argue about the presence in the list of Becoming Jane – developed elsewhere but shot here – but let’s not, if only because the Irish Film Board invested in it.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 121.