Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 0696306010333 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC Label: Polygram USA Video Manufacturer: Polygram USA Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Polygram USA Video Release Date: February 06, 2001 Running Time: 92 minutes Sales Rank: 15691 Studio: Polygram USA Video Theatrical Release Date: March 03, 2000
Amazon.com: Anjelica Huston meant only to direct this working-class fairy tale, but took on the titular role when the original lead dropped out. Adapted from stand-up comic Brendan O'Carrol's first novel, The Mammy, the story of Agnes Browne takes place in 1960s Dublin, where the newly widowed Browne bravely deals with too little money and too many (seven) kids. She's supported through her troubles by her best friend (Marion O'Dwyer); a goofy-faced, adoring French baker (Arno Chevrier); the aforementioned brood--and her dream of one day meeting Tom Jones (materializing conveniently to belt out 'She's a Lady'). Ray Winstone (superb in Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth) plays local loan shark as nasty ogre, the one rotten spot in a neighborhood so whimsically benign it makes Capra's Bedford Falls look downright unfriendly.
Having grown up in Galway, Huston should be no stranger to Gaelic life. And her first film, Bastard Out of Carolina, showed a willingness to plumb the darkest recesses of the human heart. But Agnes Browne, all unearned sweetness and light, is feel-good soap opera tricked up as an Irishwoman's 'feminist' bid for independence. Too often, Huston generates smiles out of quaint-Irish caricature: giggling over 'organisms'--orgasms!--Agnes and her benighted pal later wonder whether breast cancer comes from having had two in a lifetime. After a surfeit of 'Jaysuses' and pub sing-alongs, you yearn for the sharp comedy of Roddy Doyle's reality-based Dublin stories, such as The Snapper or The Commitments. If you fell for the ethnic hilarity of Waking Ned Devine, you'll love Agnes Browne's Hollywood hokum about an Ireland that never was. --Kathleen Murphy
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Rating: - Whe you're this far down, the only direction is up
Angelica Huston directs and stars in this lightweight adaptation of Brendan O'Carroll's novel "The Mammy". Suddenly widowed Agnes Browne, a mother of seven, is left to raise her brood on pauper's wages. Not surprisingly, they're a handful to manage. Ciaran Owens of Angela's Ashes is aboard playing a son who gambles, smokes and runs afoul of a loan shark.
The story line descends into a series of haphazard vignettes involving Agnes Browne's daily struggle to keep her sanity and sense of humor among the tenement-life characters surrounding her. A dear friend, played by Marion O'Dwyer, dies of breast cancer and causes the requisite trauma to mind and soul that the loss of a friend should. Curiously the death of her husband in the opening scene causes quite a different response from Agnes Browne. With friend Marion in tow, she heads for the public assistance office to apply for the dole. Asked how long ... Read More
Rating: - Great Movie
Angelica Houston and cast are so lovable, funny and real. If you've read the Brown trilogy, you'll love this film. I laughed, I cried, i laughed some more...there's never a dull moment.
Rating: - Lo mejor de Agnes Browne...
Comence a conocer a Agnes Browne despues de ver varias veces la pelicula, me produce diversas sensaciones...me parece increible que tan solo una pelicula pueda hacerme reir y llorar con solo un segundo de diferencia. Creo que es el mejor papel interpretado por Anjelica Huston y considero que el resto del elenco la acompaña muy bien. Se que no me voy a cansar de ver esta pelicula nunca. ¿Lo mejor de Agnes Browne? Sin duda, su ternura...
Rating: - Slight, but engaging.
Agnes Browne (Anjelica Huston, 1999)
Brendan O'Carroll's much-loved novel is made into a film by (and starring) Anjelica Huston. Does it work? Conditionally, yes. If you look at it as a character sketch, a slice of life without much of a plot, it does work. It's a slice of Agnes Browne's life, anyway. Agnes, played with a surprising coarseness (that's right for the character) by Huston goes along, caring for her seven kids, recently widowed, selling vegetables in the market square with her best friend Marion (Irish Jam's Marion O'Dwyer), being romanced by lunkheaded French handyman (Arno Chevrier of The Chambermaid on the Titanic), dodging the local loan shark, Mr. Billy (the great Ray Winstone), from whom she borrowed money to pay for her husband's funeral, and dreaming of seats at the upcoming sold-out Tom Jones concert.
If you're looking for a movie with a strong storyline, keep going ... Read More
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- Whe you're this far down, the only direction is up
- Great Movie
