The British director Phyllida Lloyd provides a spritz of business glitter to this bleak story a few home abuse survivor navigating Dublin’s housing disaster. Sandra (Clare Dunne) is separated from her violent, manipulative husband, Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), and briefly homeless, shuffling their two younger daughters (Ruby Rose O’Hara and Molly McCann) between grotty lodges supplied by the state. When she learns of a help-to-build housing scheme, Sandra units about discovering the €35,000 wanted to assemble a brand new life from the bottom up. It’s maybe not so shocking that the lady behind Mamma Mia! and Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady would see the narrative’s fairytale potential.
Cue an upbeat montage of Sandra working two jobs and researching ground plans on a library pc. She befriends a retired builder within the queue at a DIY retailer. Peggy (Harriet Walter), a rich girl whose home she has cleaned for years, gives her a plot of land. David Guetta and Sia’s girlpower anthem Titanium performs as she dons a tough hat and borrowed boots, simply one in all many gratingly literal soundtrack decisions.
Sandra’s tidy arc of feminine empowerment is interrupted by PTSD-induced flashbacks to the abuse she has suffered. Dunne, who additionally co-wrote the script, brings admirable grit and pathos to her character with out permitting her to change into a sufferer. Nonetheless, the movie’s abrupt tonal shifts are jarring.
