Once you’ve negotiated the slightly temperamental host website, Fluent Dysphasia turns out to be an entertaining little film. The basic premise being, a man goes out for a night of heavy drinking and football watching, leaving his teenage daughter at home doing her homework, and wakes up the following morning with a worse than normal hangover. He’s lost all ability to speak or understand English, now only speaking Irish/Gaelic. Hilarity, as the scrolls say, ensues.

The film’s blurb points out that the lead actor Stephen Rea was in Interview With A Vampire, which might lead the casual viewer to a rather skewed expectation of the film’s content. Noting that he played straight man to a plethora of better-known (in name at least, this gentleman has a familiar face and a name that’s often just out of reach) comedians in Still Crazy is probably more helpful. Between the slapstick situations, deadpan leading man and various linguistic difficulties, the film owes more to classic silent film (the hapless creations of Buster Keaton come to mind, as does a Laurel and Hardy skit involving a life-changing encounter between Laurel and a window…) than Hollywood horror-light. Here an expressive look really does speak louder than the subtitles.

Fluent Dysphasia has a charming sort of oddity. Splicing together both the subtle and the obvious in a pleasing mix. Even the film’s title gets in on the act: don’t be tempted to check the meaning of dysphasia before watching the film, just be content knowing that it’s apt. Indulging our expectations with some father/daughter bonding, as his daughter uses her school-girl Gaelic to try to re-teach him English, while neatly dodging schmaltz with a timely application of the (far from metaphoric) old frying pan of reality. Touching on the odd status of language and identity in film-making, where increasing resources are becoming available to support film-making in Welsh, and Scots and Irish Gaelic (or Gàidhlig and Gaeilge if you want to be strictly accurate), contrasted with a limited supply of both film-makers and audiences who speak the languages concerned. Especially given the increasing dominance of English as the language of both film and business around the world. Having his spouting Gaelic being mistaken for speaking in tongues is a nice touch and makes for a clever contrast with the blank incomprehension that the majority of the English speaking world produces when confronted with other languages.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it might actually have been a better film if it’d been a bit longer, that even at half an hour it would have had the chance to explore some of the issues and ideas it throws up in a fuller fashion. However, as it stands it’s a nice little comedy, with interesting undertones about identity and communication. An excellent calling card for a director with definite potential for future greatness.

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