Ondine had so much going for it: Neil Jordan, Colin Farrell, Stephen Rea, the southwest coast of Ireland, the selkie myth, the complexity of modern Ireland. But the film was surprisingly poor. It starts off very promising, and that promise is a film that offers an interesting mix of fairy tale and realism. But the mix gets muddled about halfway through, and the last twenty minutes are ridiculously poor. The scenery is beautiful. Colin Farrell at his most handsome. The soundtrack is lovely. But the acting, across the board, is mediocre -- primarily, I think, because the screenplay just doesn't hold up. But I also think the little girl is weak, and woman who plays Ondine is just vacuous, not mysterious. I forced myself to watch it a second time, just in case I just came to it with false expectations, and found it to be worse the second time around. Once you know the ending, you can see that the earlier scenes don't add up: they were "tricks" that the film plays on you.
