‘Spilt Milk’: Tallinn Review

Dir. Brian Durnin. Republic of Ireland. 2024. 91mins

Inner city Dublin, 1984. Brian Durnin’s ambitious feature debut is set in an evocatively-rendered public housing estate where one family fights for survival. Screenwriter Cara Loftus has conceived a radical concept: to use a child’s-eye view to frame the story of a heroin epidemic that ravaged the city at that time. That the child fashions himself as a detective along the lines of his hero Kojak means that the viewer also stumbles into the plot unknowingly. What initially looks like an Irish Nancy Drew enters some very dark terrain it has trouble navigating tonally.

Marks a new generation of talent in front and behind the lens

A very secure sense of time and place goes a long way towards anchoring the high aims of Durnin and Loftus, and Spilt Milk certainly announces itself with a loud voice. Subtitling may be called for in wider markets to help with the strong Dublin dialect, but the film should certainly draw audiences at home, currently keen to look back on the recent past with clearer eyes. (It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Cillian Murphy’s dark Small Things Like These is set during the same recession-hit period.)

The cast list is also a showcase for Ireland’s upcoming acting talent — Danielle Galligan as a somewhat youthful mother, Laurence O’Fuarain as the father and Lewis Brophy as Oisin, the older brother of ‘Kid Detective’ Bobby O’Brien (Cillian Sullivan). While Sullivan makes for a charming lead, and has been cast in Richard Linklater’s upcoming Blue Moon, they all need to watch out for Bobby’s child sidekick Nell, played with scene-stealing thievery by Naoise Kelly.

At first Bobby and Nell occupy themselves with solving small mysteries for a few pence: missing toys, lost bicycles. He’s saving up for a hat like the one Kojak’s Telly Savalas wears. But the problems start to increase in size. Where is his mother Maura’s (Galligan) wedding ring? Where has the TV set gone? And why has his beloved older brother Oisin suddenly disappeared after a bitter fight with their father John (O’Fuarain)? The search for answers will propel Bobby and Nell from their small world of childish fantasy into the real-life heroin epidemic which raged in inner city Dublin at that time.  

Spilt Milk has a vivid visual identity, thanks to production designer Shane McEnroe. The film is set in Dublin’s northside and had access to shoot in some of the public housing from that time which still exists. That is, of course, a help, but there’s also a colour and costume (by Gwen Jefferes Hourie) palette which is highly evocative, framed against set decoration which is appropriate to poor working class households struggling to get by. There’s also a brilliantly realised sequence set during a party in an abandoned structure lit, like the rest of the film, by Peaky Blinders DoP Cathal Watters.

All that helps secure Spilt Milk when the going gets ambitiously hard. The children are 11 years-old, which is young for the film to effectively to work as a rites-of-passage feature. It’s always clear that Durnin is going to have to make a choice. He can either pull away from the grim reality surrounding them that they’ve come to fully understand and give them their childhood and innocence back. Or he can keep it dark, which not only isn’t palatable, but won’t work with the early jaunty ‘Kid Detective’ tone. 

It’s difficult to combine the elements that Durnin and writer Loftus want to tackle and find the right tone that works across the piece. While it’s always going to be more easily digestible for Irish audiences who remember the time and know the place, Spilt Milk is an accessible film that also marks a new generation of talent in front and behind the lens.