Daily Archives: January 23, 1995

A Man Of No Importance

Even though it stars Albert Finney, this is a picture of no importance, undone mainly by its self-ingratiated cuteness. (The English have the perfect adjective to describe the tone, twee, which is somewhere between quaint and smarmy.) Finney plays a Dublin bus conductor in the early 60s who’s devoted to Oscar Wilde and to using his job to recruit actors for his amateur productions of Wilde plays; he’s also a repressed homosexual going through a middle-aged sexual awakening, which provokes the disapproving suspicions of his sister and a local butcher. This movie has heart all right, but seems much too pleased and facile about it. Written by Barry Devlin and directed by Suri Krishnamma; with Brenda Fricker, Michael Gambon, and Tara Fitzgerald. (JR) Read more