Colm (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) is a middle-aged family man and has spent four decades working in management for a shipping firm on Dublin, Ireland’s docks. The death of his destructive father sends Colm into a crisis, which only worsens when he realizes how estranged he has become from his children and his kind wife. His situation worsens when a new firm takes over his employer and he is laid off.
Struggling for a handle on something, Colm turns to the forbidden: an 18-year-old male prostitute, Jay (Tom Glynn-Carney), who taunts, bullies, and blackmails Colm. Throughout, and despite Jay’s lack of interest and cruel nature, Colm is oddly complacent, seeking a human connection with the boy. Finally, a friendship of sorts arises, or at least an understanding of one another’s struggles and pain.
Filmmaker Peter Mackie Burns gets a couple of extraordinary performances from his two leads and beautifully paces this difficult story in a way that makes the most shocking behaviors here a series of descending efforts to feel alive when all else seems dead. Dublin’s docks serve as an excellent visual refrain for this story of fleeting encounters, random hookups, and rapid departures. Strongly recommended.