Ireland, 1998, PG, Color, High-Concept Dark Comedy, 91 min

Directed by Kirk Jones; Starring Ian Bannen, David Kelly, Fionnula Flanagan

I hate to lead with a spoiler, but the baby daddy gets revealed in the end.

Waking Ned Devine provides us with a glimpse into the species curmudgeon and their sub-species codger.  More crotchety than cantankerous, when a curmudgeon meets up with a codger in the wild, the conniving will commence.  A pinch of shenanigans, a dash of high jinks, fold in a few more roustabouts and our half-baked conspiracy comes out of the oven with enough down-home goodness to provide the whole tiny hamlet of Tulaigh Mhór with comfort food for the rest of their lives.  Let the pints of Guinness flow!

Tulaigh Mhór rests upon the headlands of Ireland’s rocky coastline.  The villagers, each rather busy building a life for themselves, find out that one of their own holds the winning ticket to the multi-million dollar national lottery.  As they all scramble to figure out the winner, Jackie O'Shea (Bannen), Michael O’Sullivan (Kelly), and Annie O’Shea (Flanagan) come up with an ingenious plan to ferret him/her out.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

What might at first look like self-interest quickly becomes a community effort when it’s revealed that the ticket holder is the very recently deceased Ned Devine.  A dead Ned just won’t do.  With the attitude that ‘everybody gets at little so that all of us get a lot’, the villagers agree to a bit of deception to claim the winning proceeds.  There is one holdout.  One angry, greedy, ornery little holdout - but she’ll get hers, just wait.

Waking Ned Devine is warm-hearted entertainment, but it’s also a story about people who care about each other, about life-long friends who wanted better for the people in their lives, and about what it means to remember your community and those who have passed on from it.  Have a pint with a friend sometime soon. (PSW)