New Interview and more reviews for The Mighty Celt
Posted at 11:04 AM (PDT) on Friday, August 26, 2005

This is LONDON
August 26, 2005

X-Files ex is in love with London
By Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard

Even accepting she's just had her make-up done for our photo shoot, Gillian Anderson looks flawless. Though not normally the first thing you expect to remark on, with Anderson it's almost fair game.

Ever a reluctant interviewee, she's here to do her bit for The Mighty Celt, the film, opening today, in which she stars with Robert Carlyle, written and directed by Pearse Elliott and set in contemporary Belfast.

Anderson, unfamiliar with Northern Ireland, took her preparation seriously, driving around Belfast with her husband of eight months, ex-Financial Times foreign correspondent Julian Ozanne.

"I realised how little I knew about the complexities of the issues," she says, carefully and with no suggestion that she's now mastered them; merely that she's trying. "We visited the different sides of the Falls Road, the monuments, the graveyards, the murals. We looked at houses with nets draped over their back yards to protect them, like tiny prisons. But we looked, too, at what a beautiful city Belfast is, and how strong is its sense of community, its optimism."

To read the entire article, click here.

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Lots more TMC reviews:

The Irish Times
Belfast Telegraph
Arts Telegraph
The Mirror
The Independent
The Guardian
Irish News
The Scotsman

Daily Record (excerpts)
By Alan Morrison

Scottish acting duo Robert Carlyle and Ken Stott take on Irish accents for this tale set in contemporary Belfast. Former X-Files star Gillian Anderson is also word perfect as the single mother of Donal (Tyrone McKenna), a boy who is obsessed with greyhounds. Behind the boy's story is a portrait of the adults' Northern Ireland, a country and its people trying - and sometimes failing - to change and move on from the sectarian violence of the past. t's a low-key release that doesn't really gain much from big screen projection, although strong performances and an absorbing story raise it above made-for-TV fare.

Evening Times, Glasgow (excerpts)
By Andy Dougan

THERE are a lot of good things coming out of both sides of the border in Ireland, cinematically speaking. Adam and Paul, for example, remains one of the best films I've seen this year. This is not in the same league but despite being a slight drama it is worth a look if only for the quality of a cast that includes Robert Carlyle, Gillian Anderson, and Ken Stott.

What we have here is National Velvet with greyhounds and Belfast accents. Director Pearse Elliot has a tendency to romanticise almost everything to the point where its one note of genuine discomfort - a sub-plot about Republican gunrunners - just disappears. That apart, it's the performances that make this one worth watching, along with a running time that doesn't overstay its welcome.