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Irish charm shapes Anjelica Huston's 'Agnes'
By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle
(April 28, 2000) -- Agnes Browne is an engaging, if lightweight, bit of Irish blarney about a widow trying to turn her life around.
It's the late '60s, and Dublin fruit-seller Agnes Browne finds herself widowed with seven children. She's determined to get out of debt, feed her boisterous kids and maybe even learn to drive a car.
Her dreams are pretty basic. She wants to keep making a living at her fruit stall. She wants to continue to share a joke and a song with her best friend, Marion. She'd like to enjoy a date or two with the newly arrived French baker who has taken a fancy to her.
And one day -- Lord willin' -- she'd love to meet her favorite singer, Tom Jones.
Playing Browne is the capable Anjelica Huston, who also directs with a deft and humane touch. Irishness and a convincing accent come naturally to the veteran American actress. She was born and raised in the west of Ireland. Her legendary father, director John Huston, had a country home near Galway in the 1960s.
Certainly, as tales of Irish poverty go, Agnes Browne is no Angela's Ashes. There's not enough substance here to turn to ash; it'd all go up in green smoke. Nonetheless, the film offers a sweet, amusing blend of Irish charm and pop-culture sensibility, symbolized by a musical score that's an even blend of The Chieftains and Tom Jones.
Though Huston seems a bit too elegant to be playing a middle-aged working-class fruit seller, she successfully conveys an appropriate sense of world-weariness, balanced by a spark of determination.
Huston's best scenes are with Marion O'Dwyer, who's superb as Agnes' best friend. Despite serious problems of her own, Marion always has time for Agnes.
The two paint a touching portrait of a deep, lifelong friendship; it's the most substantial aspect of this warm-hearted wisp of a movie.
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