okay but the THING about the Kneecap movie is that these guys are not originally actors, they love to talk about the months of acting classes they took to get ready for the movie in interviews, they're always so happy to shout out their acting coach by name (iirc it's Kieran Laggen? unclear on spelling tho).
but the translation scene at the police station is a fucking masterclass in performing different levels of communication, with three entirely different conversations happening at the same time, one in English, one in Irish, and one entirely non-verbally, this deep emotional exchange happening just with their faces -- man, that is what i call ACTING. there's the English conversation that's trying to keep the cop busy, trying to diffuse the tension just long enough to keep the plate spinning on the other conversations, and then under it, in Irish, there's this fairly intense and politically sophisticated back and forth about effective tactics and working inside vs. outside the system, collaboration vs. pragmatism.
and then under all THAT, on the nonverbal level, on the one side you see JJ falling in emotional, political LOVE, being inspired instead of feeling defeated about this thing that he cares about maybe for the first time in years, and feeling at the same time both protective of the person who's inspiring that feeling and slightly hostile about it because doesn't this guy know that caring like that, in this defiant, uncompromising way, isn't going to WORK, because if it worked maybe JJ would still be doing it, maybe he wouldn't feel this old and jaded in his fucking thirties already. and then on Mo Chara's side you see what starts out as this, not directionless because the direction is very clear, but this non-goal-oriented stubbornness in channeling his anger and frustration, this feeling of "i may be fucked but i don't have to make it easy for them" -- you see that feeling notice the crack in JJ and just kind of joyfully pry it open, because there's still POSSIBILITY here, he may not have the power in this situation but that doesn't mean he's powerLESS, and the sense that there's something here, in the energy between him and JJ that he can work with is this bright shard of SOMETHING, the hopeful energy they've both been missing before they start to spark off of each other.
all of which is to say that this movie is, uh. really good.
