Audiences loved Red Roses and Petrol in Boston, where World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation was pleased to have the film showcased in the area’s top theater: the AMC Loews Harvard Square, last week. As it did in New York, Los Angeles and Orange County, CA, the picture again received a high audience rating. Advertising was run in three local papers, but it was The Boston Globe that returned with our favorite review to date (see below).
“Petrol” Is A Mordantly Funny Affair
By Michael Hardy
Globe CorrespondentWhen a movie’s main character dies before the opening credits, you begin to suspect the filmmakers of morbidity. When the first song turns out to be Flogging Molly’s “The Worst Day Since Yesterday,” you might be tempted to head for the exits.
But stay put: As Samuel Beckett wisely noted, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” And although it never achieves the bleak hilarity of “Endgame,” “Red Roses and Petrol,” an adaptation of Irish writer Joseph O’Connor’s play, boasts its share of Beckettian moments — I’m thinking especially of the point when one of the characters snorts two lines of his father’s ashes, mistaking them for cocaine.
Those ashes are the remnants of Enda (Malcolm McDowell), the craggy, domineering paterfamilias of the Doyle clan. A heart attack fells Enda in the first scene of the film, but he lingers on through his video diary, which the Doyles watch during his wake. In the Irish ballad “Finnegan’s Wake,” the rowdy mourners bring the departed back to life with their festivities. In “Petrol,“ on the other hand, there are no festivities at all, and the family’s greatest concern seems to be making sure that Enda stays good and dead.
Enda, you see, is not exactly in line for beatification. A tyrannical father and an unfaithful husband, he bequeaths to his family a lifetime’s worth of grievances. Perhaps the most aggrieved is Enda’s son Johnny (Max Beesley), a whiskey-sodden ne’er-do-well collapsing under the weight of unfulfilled expectations. Enda’s two daughters struggle with their own problems: Medbh is planning to elope to Australia, and Catherine is introducing her fiancé to the family for the first time. And Enda’s wife, Moya, suffers for the sins of everyone, assuming the Sisyphean responsibility of maintaining family unity.
Because “Petrol” is so grim, its few moments of repentance and reconciliation don’t feel as contrived as they might otherwise; if any film has earned the right to be sentimental, it’s this one. The darkness is also broken by Beesley’s inflammable performance, which recalls McDowell’s own star-making turn in “A Clockwork Orange.” “Petrol,” it’s true, follows in the footsteps of earlier, better plays by Eugene O’Neill and Harold Pinter. But between its extraordinary performances and some of the most inventive cursing I’ve ever heard (all in a creamy Irish brogue), this film, like adaptations of “The Homecoming” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” before it, deserves its own place in the sun.
Great news! The nationwide rollout of Red Roses and Petrol continues with the Friday, September 12, release of the film in Boston at the AMC Loews Harvard Square 5, one of the top theaters in the United States. Additionally, the movie will open in two other major markets, Chicago and Denver, on Friday, September 19, at the Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Café and the Nova 8 Cinemas, respectively. The addresses for all three theaters are provided below. Check back at www.redrosesandpetrol.com as the date gets closer to purchase advance tickets.
AMC Loews Harvard Square 5
10 Church St.
Cambridge, MA 02138-3716
Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Café
250 East Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO 80206
Nova 8 Cinemas
352 State Route 59
Naperville, IL 60540
Red Roses and Petrol has now completed its initial, bi-coastal theatrical run, and World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation is energized by the results. We wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to show their support during opening weekend and beyond as we gear up to bring the film to Boston and Chicago. Do you know people in those cities? Please help spread the word by directing them to the movie’s official web site, www.redrosesandpetrol.com, for upcoming ticketing information. Thanks for your support!