FILM REVIEW, PUFFBALL - Published Deathray Magazine September 08

Release Date: 18 July 2008
Cert: 18
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Writers: Dan Weldon (written by)
Fay Weldon (novel)
Starring: Kelly Reilly, Rita Tushingham, Miranda Richardson, Oscar Pearce, William Houston.
Rating: 4/10

Strapline: This sluggish tale of domestic witchery in a backward Ireland will confuse Roeg fans and initiates alike. (Worth it for the inside-the-cervix shot of male orgasm.)

It would have been satisfying if what must surely be Roeg’s farewell film – he hit eighty this year – had seen a return to his iconic hay-day. ‘Puffball’ seemed to promise such a re-birth, harking back to 70s masterpieces ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘Walkabout’ in its depiction of a couple’s strained relations in elusive, hostile territory – this time Irish cattle-rearing country. But what could have been an expressive take on the Celtic landscape, with its primordial ties to motherhood, fertility and black craft, turns out to be a kitchen-sink drama about a meddlesome family with a few black spells tucked away in the jam cupboard.

When architect Liffey (Kelly Reilly) and her partner Richard (Oscar Pearce) decide to renovate an old cottage in an Irish backwater they find something far more treacherous than dry rot in the foundations. (Thinking little red dwarf?) Coming to terms with an un-planned pregnancy, Liffey soon finds herself fighting off the prying interest of the pathologically maternal family next-door. Witchery is afoot as the Tucker family, presided over by the aged Molly (Rita Tushingham) attempt to use Liffey’s fertile womb to “re-birth” a little boy they lost when their hexed cottage went up in flames years ago. (Thinking drowned daughter?) While the supernatural powers unleashed are cursorily attributed to the Nordic God Oden, the real catalyst proves to be Molly’s witch-brew aphrodisiac, prompting the man of the house (William Houston plays the swarthy Tucker) to give Liffey a ‘bewitched’ barnyard banging.

‘Puffball’ is an adaptation of a Fay Weldon novel, and its insistence on conforming to the book’s realism is misguided - especially as the Tucker sorcery is uninspired, leaving us playing ‘spot the symbol’ with fires, phalluses and voodoo corn-dolls. The film’s saving grace is the turgid atmosphere that swells alongside Liffey’s womb. It takes a little while, but Roeg’s trademark flashbacks and disjunctive, twitchy camera-work (along with some creatively captured intra-sound) do finally manage to ratchet up the nausea. And this is disturbingly coupled with the film’s feverish horniness as Liffey, Richard and Mr. Tucker become ensnared in a potion-induced sex triangle.

Does the heady atmosphere built towards a redeeming climax? We may recall that a puffball is a mushroom that grows its spores on the inside to eventually – dramatically - burst open. Sadly there is no such explosive zenith to ‘Puffball’ the film. Roeg’s last stab at past grandeur will be remembered for its consistent mediocrity.

Quote: “Every child will say, ‘Mummy, why am I here?’ Well, God knows why we are but one thing is certain, it’s to procreate.” - Nicolas Roeg shows his advanced age hasn’t altered his sense of purpose.