An Ríomh: An Ancient, Grim Fairytale

Eleanor Shannon’s 20-minute drama An Ríomh takes the setting of a romance—a meadow blooming with wildflowers in the depths of a forest, a girl, and a boy who is infatuated with her—and sends the (im)balance of power between its main characters tumbling with an affective invocation of history as the woods come alive around them. What is a sorrowful premise becomes electrified as a keen, poignant cat and mouse game. 

The plot shows the story come untethered. The end and the beginning and the middle, shaken out of placidity, have left their assigned places. There is a dead body, and it is neither the beginning nor the end. Later, when we are introduced to the young woman, she is wholly different. Giddy with the first brushes of a new romance, Aine (Shannon) texts back and forth with an unseen person. She is still a student. Soft and cheery lighting fills the bedroom, an ordinary room of an everyday woman aglow with youth, hope, and whimsy. A date is set up—a walk, it’s decided—Aine eager to finally meet the charming man behind the texts. 

The woods are gorgeous, a haven for imagination and adventure. It is a sweet, tentative romance between Aine and her date, Ciaron (Jack Watson). The elements are all there: awkwardness, nerves, attraction, flirting, caution, hopes. She leaves navigation to him. 

The lighting changes between scenes as the narrative cuts between timelines. The same setting transforms from Disney fairyland to Brothers Grimm forest while the echoes of a haunting song spins the cloth of history into a fine net of inescapable, cold fury. Without the gloss of sunshine, the taint of the past envelops both Aine and Ciaron, although in very different ways. Both actors have to essentially play double roles. Awaiting that chronological shift from one mode to the other, the actors creditably sell the romance as if we are not simultaneously aware of the turn in the road. 

The climax takes the pair to a wildflower meadow, a choice that cleverly calls back to the mysticism of the first Twilight film. The song has reached a frenzied pitch, though without losing its form. Not unlike Aine, who is discovering, perhaps for the first time, what it is like to hold all the power in a situation until it can no longer pass for a bargain. 

An Ríomh is an affirmation as much as it is a consolation. With its pace and shifts, it hooks you in but does not dangle false hopes. Instead, lays its cards on the table and asks you to watch plainly as injustices are turned around. Undoing, though, has never been an option. 

Watch An Ríomh Short Film Trailer