When the themes of a movie are goldfish, sex and love you know you’re going to be taken on one hell of a journey. Such a journey is chronicled in “Goldfish Memory,” a movie written and directed by Irish auteur Liz Gill.
Liz Gill began her career as a first assistant Director here in the U.S. She began writing, and wrote and directed an off-off Broadway play called “A Woman’s Place.” Shortly after she wrote a short film called “Kiss of Death.” In 1996 she made her directorial debut with a film called “Gold in the Streets.” After a few years hiatus she came out with her second feature film, “Goldfish Memory.”
A native of Ireland, Gill places the narrative of this story in her home country. It begins with a little anecdote about goldfish: “Goldfish only have a three second memory so when they travel around the bowl its as though they are seeing everything for the first time. When they meet another goldfish it as though they have each met for the first time, even if they have encountered each other multiple times. This is the same with humans, who when they fall in love, it is as though they are falling in love for the first time and past discretions are forgotten, because this will be different. This is new.”
The story follows several different couples looking for lust and love in places they never thought they could find it. Each of the characters seem to have one thing in common, they are looking for that all powerful love that will consume them and make them forget everything else. What makes this film different from others, aside from the constant shots of goldfish and pictures of goldfish, is that if you see two people in a scene together, whether the same sex or not, it is likely that they are going to hook up.
First there is Tom (Sean Campion, “Meaningful Sex”), the older college professor in Dublin, that proclaims he is looking for love but really what he must find is maturity as he goes through several of his female students before discovering that someone his own age might suit him better. Someone to actually last past semester’s end. Then Clara (Fiona O’Shaughnessy, “Clubbing”), one of Tom’s many conquests, discovers that love can be found in places that she didn’t consider, like with journalist Angie (Flora Montgomery, “The Last”) a lesbian who helps Clara discover passion and desire. Clara in turn helps Isolde (Fiona Glascott, “Veronica Guerin”), another of Tom’s many student lovers, find that love doesn’t need to be defined between a man and a woman and that it can blossom when you least expect it or want it to.
Angie’s best friend Red, played by Keith McErlean (“The Escapist”), a gay man who finds commitment to be too much work, begins courting a proclaimed straight man David (Peter Gaynor, “The Abduction Club”), who has a girlfriend Rosie (Lise Hearns, “Fair City”). Rosie works hard to fuel David’s lust for her, but is unsuccessful. During this, David meets Red and discovers he may not be straight after all. Throughout this are interwoven stories of the relationships of all these characters, such as a drunken night between Angie and Red, the two proclaimed homosexuals, which leads to a mistake that they can’t take back. Angie, after having her heart broken by the illusive Clara, meets Kate (Justine Mitchell, “Citizen Verdict”), who becomes the mate she was always looking for and together they decide that their life is going to be the one that all those “straight people enjoy” as they decide to have the child that Angie and Red’s drunken night produces.
The film is full of these complicated yet predictable side stories. When the story comes full circle, the viewer is left with nothing to ponder. Even with all of its foreseeable problems between characters, dialogue and hook ups, the film can still boast a solid delivery by the actors. When one character, a boyfriend of Clara’s discovers she is also seeing a woman, he declares, “If you’re attracted to someone then there must be a reason for it and you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is. Why should we be trapped in this bourgeois idea of monogamy?”
The film mocks itself, as when Tom, walking past a window, notices two women kissing and realizes that it is Clara and Isolde, two old lovers. The expression on his face, one of utter amazement, is a hilarious moment that boosts the film a little more, along with comic lines and random slapstick moments along the way.
Each of the characters has their own flaws that are subtle but pronounced that allow for the dynamic to continue for 85 minutes. Although it can be deemed a “chick flick,” for all of its romance and talk of love after only months of dating, it doesn’t leave the viewer feeling like they have been covered in sugar coatings. Instead, “Goldfish Memory” allows the viewer to decide whether or not they believe that love can be found anywhere, as the film boasts.
Constant making out quickly becomes a little dull, but the film’s swarm of characters and the way their ideosyncracies play out provides plenty of incentive to sit through a few lackluster romance scenes. The film is short enough to allow all the stories to come full circle and long enough to exhaust the moral of the story, that love is new every time it happens.
Grade: B/C
