Conamara

Quirky romance set on the West coast of Ireland: an old German boyfriend (Schmidt) unexpectedly and belatedly visits now-married Maria (Ten Damme, vital) and sets off ructions with her placid husband Antaine (Kelly, solid). The crofts and farms of Connemara are shot with a handheld camera, and the film revels in the idiosyncracies of the local basket weavers and the oddball, bassoon-playing stranger without trespassing too far into cliché. And the ramshackle narrative, about setting up an amphibious tourist tour vehicle, is shored up by uninhibited performances and an overall lack of pomposity.