DEATH OF A LADIES MAN

Reviewed by GREG KING

Director: Matt Bissonnette

Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Jessica Pare, Brian Gleeson, Karelle Tremblay, Antoine Olivier Pilon, Carolina Bartczak, Suzanne Clement, Pascale Bussieres, Raphael Grosz-Harvey.

This Irish/Canadian coproduction stars Gabriel Byrne as Samuel O’Shea, a Montreal based lecturer and a hard drinking womaniser. He arrives home to discover his second and much younger wife having passionate sex with a stranger in their marital bed and asks for a divorce. But this is just the start of a string of incidents that begin to beguile him. He starts having hallucinations and holds long in-depth conversations with the ghost of his long dead chain-smoking father (Brian Gleeson). Then he is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and given just months to live.

He makes an effort to reconnect with his drug addicted daughter Josie (Karelle Tremblay) and his son Layton (Antoine Olivier Pilon, from Mommy, etc) who has just recently come out as gay. He also revisits his native Ireland and settles into a small cottage on the cliffs overlooking the sea to write the novel he has long been planning. He meets Charlotte (Jessica Pare), who works in the local shop, and falls in love with her. But he earns the ire of her jealous and violent former boyfriend.

How much of what transpires though is real, a figment of his fevered mind, or part of his fictional novel, is anyone’s guess. And that is one of the pleasures of this quirky, surreal and offbeat mix of black comedy and drama written and directed by Matt Bissonnette (the 2009 comedy Passenger Side, the 2002 documentary Looking For Leonard, etc). Bissonnette is a Montreal based filmmaker who apparently is obsessed with the music of Leonard Cohen, one of Montreal’s favourite sons. Here he has used the singer’s music to great effect, and it adds to the film’s melancholy tone.

Cohen’s powerful and haunting songs, with all of their melancholy lyrics, ironies, and wise insights into the human condition, add a superb counterpoint to the unfolding drama. The film’s title comes from Cohen’s fifth studio album, which was produced by Phil Spector and released in 1977, which marked something of a departure for the singer. The film itself is divided into chapters, each one opened with a lyric from one of Cohen’s songs. Cohen gave his blessing to this project before his death in 2016.

Byrne effortlessly turns on the charm here in one of his best performances for years and he brings a touch of self-deprecating humour and blarney to the role as he battles his inner demons and faces his own mortality. His Samuel is a likeable enough chap even though sometimes his narcissistic attitude and excesses are questionable.

While the film might sound a bit downbeat, it is actually quite enjoyable, leavened with touches of wry humour, some offbeat imagery and the wonderful soundtrack that includes songs such as Bird On A Wire and the classic Hallelujah. The film has been beautifully shot on locations in Montreal and the wind-swept coast of Ireland by cinematographer Jonathon Cliff, who comes from a background in documentary filmmaking (Small Town Gay Bar, etc) and television.

★★★