Parked

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Meaney plays Fred, a middle-aged man who has returned to Dublin for unknown reasons after years in England. Refused the dole and housing, Fred has taken to living in his car, which is parked in a deserted car park that looks out onto a beachfront. A few spaces down in a similar situation is Cathal (Morgan), a twenty-year-old drug addict with a cheery demeanour. He's here to lift the fog surrounding Fred and give him the confidence to approach Jules (Ahlroth), a pretty piano player at a gospel church. But dealer Frank (McElhatton) is putting the squeeze on Cathal and Fred is now in the firing line...

The opening shot is a peaceful one: a serene Meaney gazes out across the water, scribbling the odd line in his notebook. Behind him, though, a wrecked car is scrawled with 'scum'. At first it looks like the juxtaposition of ugliness in beauty but as the film progresses (this scene is a flash-forward to the end) it's the opposite: there is beauty to be found in the ugliness. This theme pops up every so often: these men are living out of their cars, sure, but they find a friendship they wouldn't have if they didn't.

Playwright Ciarán Creagh's script finds a nice balance between over-dramatising the events and deliberately downplaying them. The burgeoning romance between Fred and Jules never gives over to melodrama - watching them go through the will they/wont they there is a yearning that the ante would be upped and there can be certain frustration that it never does, which could be the reason it works so well. Where Creagh pulls no punches is in the depiction of the Department of Social Welfare, which isn't painted in the greatest of light.

Everyone's favourite Meaney is probably The Snapper's Dessie Curley (or maybe Intermission's Clannad-loving detective), but Fred is a different Meaney. It's a Meany is quiet mode, turning everything down in a real introspective performance. A real find is Colin Morgan, who brings a wiry, jittery energy to complement Meaney's understatement.