Bring Them Down: The Blueprint for Irish Drama Grows Tiring
By Alicia McCormack
As a person from rural Ireland, I may be a bit biased. I found myself rolling my eyes at Bring Them Down (2024) – Chris Andrew’s revenge thriller/drama directorial debut. It has skyrocketed to a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and gathered praise for its deep symbolism, chilling atmosphere and phenomenal cast. But, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this film before.
There are few films set in Ireland and fewer still set in the Irish countryside. Those that have come to acclaim seem to have adopted the same formula – which wins with critics and awards shows – but has become tiring for ordinary viewers. The blueprint goes like this: deeply troubled characters who resent everyone around them, leading stagnant lives of regret on small farms isolated amidst stunning scenery. They are driven to insanity by minor issues and proceed to destroy their relationships and prospects along with those of everyone around them. Usually, innocent animals are sacrificed to hammer home the tragedy. It ends in ambiguity with the protagonist staring into space realizing what they’ve done.
This isn’t to say that such stories don’t need to be told. Bring Them Down has some important conversations about aspects of life in rural Ireland that go unspoken due to a stigma around mental health. The protagonist Michael (Christopher Abbott) is a man of few words, but his mind is a swirling pool of darkness and danger. He lives with his ailing and abusive father (Colm Meaney) whom he has an extreme loyalty surpassing any moral code. Abbot’s acting is masterful, with flashes of forlornity when he looks at his ex-girlfriend Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), now married to his arch-nemesis, that show us the loneliness and regret in his life.
Bring Them Down does an excellent job at potraying the feelings of entrapment in a rural community that have been explored in recent Irish flicks like Banshees of Inisherin (2022). The characters have very narrow worlds, with small slights appearing as existential threats. This is explored through Jack (Barry Keoghan), Caroline’s teenage son, a muttering, unsettling figure hiding beneath the hood of his blue puffer jacket. He watches the adults around him battling over money and sheep and grapples with the fear that this is all his life will ever amount to. One scene shows him sitting alone in the mountains with his headphones on. The contrast between the idyllic landscape with sheep peacefully grazing versus the rap music blasting in his ears suggest the torrent of confusion in his mind, and his interest in the world outside of Ireland. Jack is also a tool for delving into toxic masculinity culture in Ireland. He is desperate to prove himself ‘a man’ who can stand up for his family, to the point where he discards all his morals and commits heinous acts of mutilation against Michael’s sheep. Michael, too, is spurred on in his bloody quest by his father who wants him to avenge the family’s honor.
From this point on, it all just seemed to get a bit ridiculous. The story is a character driven journey into dark secrets, but the plot quickly descends into a pantomime. Having grown up on a sheep farm, I’ve seen some of the predicaments play out in real time, which made it impossible to suspend my disbelief to the point of accepting that this could lead to (*spoilers*) a flipped car, death of multiple animals, the beheading of an uninvolved man, a burst eardrum, and a double stabbing incident. The tensions escalate far too quickly over rock bottom stakes that don’t hold much interest. The final scene features Jack running ‘for his life’ into the mountains at such pace that Michael – who withstood a gunshot wound hours before – catches him within minutes. A pointless scuffle ensues, leaving them both injured and entirely worse-off. The melodrama was very reminiscent of Banshees of Inisherin with Colm hacking off his fingers to force Padraic to stop speaking to him or Bull McCabe in The Field (1990) driving his entire stock – along with his son – off a cliff because he couldn’t buy a field. I can appreciate the symbolism, but unhinged responses to not getting your own way seems to be a staple trope of Irish drama that is growing wearisome.
Bring Them Down has a lot of merit in its incredible cast, amazing setting and study of difficult human emotions. But its abandonment of plot in exchange for ludicrous histrionics made it a dull watch. It was not helped by the fact that every film in the genre shares the ever-present cliches that made the film’s direction very predictable from the early scenes. It may be a movie that is popular among critics seeking metaphorical significance but it flops among viewers looking for good storytelling. There is a lot more to say about rural Ireland but filmmakers seem to rehash the same saga over and over again.
