What Richard Did

Overall an OK film but I would just like to share a comment or two.The film was slow and I felt that certain character aspects were left unexplored.

'What Richard Did' is a distinctly underwhelming title for this film, but it is at least descriptive. Richard is a good looking middle class lad, seemingly someone with few problems other than a bit of entirely normal teenage sexual jealousy then something bad happens, and he has to deal with it.

Hailed as the most important Irish film of the century, I had high expectations before seeing this flick. I knew nothing of the plot except from the title.

I saw this film at the Ghent (Belgium) film festival 2013, where it was part of the Global Cinema section. The descriptions on festival website, Facebook and IMDb sounded intriguing.

Richard Karlsen is the golden-boy athlete and alpha-male of his set of South Dublin friends.The summer between the end of school and the beginning of university is here, and the world is bright and everything seems possible.

What worked: the ambiance and the setting of the movie goes in the right direction in the first half of the movie, good enough for the viewers to understand and sympathize with the lead charactersWhat did not work: the movie did not hit the right mark or at least to the extend to make the audience feel the overwhelming tension of the situation. In my opinion, more could have been done to conclude the movie, maybe a different perspective or more scenes to support the point.

The title of this Irish film, What Richard did, contains the excitement right from before you start watching. A neat trick, if you like to create interest, and this does the trick.

After watching the trailer and reading a few reviews, I wasn't quite sure of what to expect. However, after watching the movie, I was quite impressed.

This is an actor's movie and the first of Lenny Abrahamson's movies I've seen. It might be the last, given the somewhat well-trodden story and plot coupled with the slow pacing of the entire narrative.