Halfway through, Tamar Simon Hoffs’s faky Irish melodrama seems to devolve into full-blown parody of stereotypes — you know it’s time to re-evaluate your script when you have modern-day Dubliners swilling whiskey and jigging on the misty moor. Adapted from Joseph O’Connor’s 1995 play, the film focuses on a dysfunctional family reeling from the sudden death of patriarch Enda Doyle (Malcolm McDowell). As they help their widowed mother, Moya (Olivia Tracey), with funeral arrangements, the adult Doyle children — bitter Catherine (Susan Lynch), brooding Johnny (Max Beesley), and wisecracking Medbh (Heather Juergensen) — pick at emotional scabs and exhume dark family “secrets.” Despite their best efforts, the actors are no match for the stagy dialogue and gaping plot holes and the sit-com-quality lighting, and the whole endeavor collapses into a sloppy pile of corned-beef hash. 97 minutes | Harvard Square
