‘Lughnasa’ makes up for overlooking humor

DANCING AT LUGHNASA, directed by Pat O’Connor. Written by Frank McGuinness, based on the play by Brian Friel. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated PG (for mild language). Nightly, March 8-11, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

Pat O’Connor’s timid yet heartfelt “Dancing at Lughnasa” follows five proud, hard-working sisters, God-fearing Irish women all caught in the throes of quiet desperation.

Based on Brian Friel’s Tony Award-winning play, the film will have particular appeal to those who follow the works of Frank McCourt, Thomas Wolfe and Maine’s Sanford Phippen. It finds its heart in the roots of its characters’ despair — which stems from the Mundy sisters’ strict Catholic upbringing — yet finds its soul in how these sisters cope with their self-imposed desperation.

This is a film where rage is a character without billing, and humor is an unwelcome stranger that should have been warmly greeted. The play’s power was in its careful balance of heartache and loss underscored with humor, but the film shifts that balance, losing the humor in favor of tense, maudlin moments that sometimes give way to bittersweet poignancy.

Overlooking the play’s humor may have been a mistake, but it wasn’t a fatal one; “Dancing at Lughnasa compensates with lush cinematography, strong writing and an excellent cast. As Kate Mundy, Meryl “Queen of all Accents” Streep delivers another deeply realized performance, her Irish brogue thick as Guinness stout. This is a banner year for Streep, whose performance as a mother dying of cancer in “One True Thing” has earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress.

In “Lughnasa,” Streep is nearly felled by a different sort of death — her character’s moral, uptight center. This is a woman who has rarely known what it is to live, to truly let herself go and give in to all that she keeps repressed. As a schoolteacher in rural Ireland circa 1936, she is a formidable, pious presence, an unhappy finger-wagger of the highest order who sees in her sister Christina’s (Catherine McCormack) relationship with Gerry (Rhys Ifans), all that she herself has missed.

As a character study, “Dancing at Lughnasa” succeeds best with Kate, whose disapproval, envy and ultimate understanding of Christina’s chance for a shot at love gives the film the emotional resonance found within the play. The film is lifted by Streep’s hallmark restraint; whether in a glance or in the most casual of gestures, she has the ability to convey the soul exposed. “Lughnasa” gives her that opportunity, but unfortunately couches it within a plot that is too slow-moving, too timid and too uneventful to give it the spark of life it needs. Grade: B-

ANALYZE THIS, directed by Harold Ramis. Written by Ramis, Peter Tolan and Kenneth Lonergan. Running time: 106 minutes. Rated R (for strong language, violence and adult content).

Harold Ramis’ new comedy, “Analyze This,” features Robert De Niro as a mobster so deeply conflicted and emotionally unstable, he pours his heart out to a shrink.

If this sounds like a situation ripe for big laughs, it is — just look at HBO’s popular series “The Sopranos,” which features a mobster so deeply conflicted and emotionally unstable, he pours his heart out to a shrink.

Clearly, someone got shrunk here — and it wasn’t HBO.

“Analyze This” is a fitting title for a film whose writers could have benefited greatly from popping some Prozac before sitting down to pen the film’s only occasionally funny script. The film — which is better than last year’s mob spoof “Mafia!” — does boast an inspired opening and a few truly funny moments, but too often it plays it safe, falling victim to a cliched formula that spoils what could have been a wickedly witty comedy.

With Billy Crystal doing his oh-so-familiar shtick as De Niro’s psychiatrist, the film’s big loss was Ramis’ decision not to use Lisa Kudrow as an active participant, but as set decoration; in this film, her comic talents are wasted. She’s just Crystal’s unhappy, misunderstood financee, a pretty smile in pretty clothes who moves about prettily while offering the occasional bitchy line of dialogue.

If only the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov had lived to direct this film. Imagine the inspired simplicity of it: Set up the joke, ring a bell, make us laugh. That’s one conditioned response this film lacked. Grade: C+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday in the NEWS. Each week on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today,” he reviews current films (Tuesdays) and what’s new and worth renting at video stores (Thursdays).