Goldfish Memory

This Irish ensemble piece about love and dating in twenty-first century Dublin feels like a six-part TV series condensed into 85 minutes; a preçis of a Hibernian ‘This Life’ if you will, complete with trademark infidelity, carefree sex, bisexuality and general what-the-hell, I’ll-shag-anything twentysomething hedonism. It’s shot on video too, so it even looks like TV.

The title hints at Gill’s light-hearted take on the perpetual cycle of love: we meet, screw, love, dump and meet again, forgetting everything before. It’s hardly a new idea, and repeated shots of goldfish – in bowls or on funky shower curtains – quickly become tiresome. We watch as sleazy literature professor Tom (Sean Campion) uses the same chat-up lines to snare a series of young students; news reporter Angie (Flora Montgomery) persuades Tom’s ex Clara (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) to bat for both teams; and barman David (Peter Gaynor) opts for bargeman Red (Keith McErlean) over his long-term girlfriend. It’s fiery, sometimes fun stuff that never rises above the level of a late-night soap.