THE STORY – Teen Danny makes a life-altering mistake, then reunites with Josh, a social worker whose past errors once separated them. Josh mentors Danny through first love and loss, teaching him that true family are those who believe in you.
THE CAST – Lewis Brophy, Carla Tous, Eileen Walsh, Imelda May & Barry Keoghan
THE TEAM – Kim Bartley (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 112 Minutes
We’ve heard the phrase, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Depending on the issue at hand, those words might feel dismissive and empty. It’s all in the context and execution. When said with compassion, those same words can spark genuine encouragement. In any case, it’s a phrase that speaks to a more overarching dilemma that affects us all: when faced with a problem, how do you cope? Especially without the resources needed? “Lemonade,” the narrative feature debut of writer and director Kim Bartley, finds strength in everyday communities surrounding Ireland’s foster care system. Told through a bittersweet lens, “Lemonade” adds a humanistic, optimistic approach to the subject of foster care. At best, it works as a tender character study, exploring inner worlds with empathy and refusing to define individuals by way of circumstances.
Bartley sets her film in contemporary Dublin, where we meet Danny (Lewis Brophy) and his chosen family intertwined with friends, social workers, and neighbors. Danny has just turned 18, and is about to age out of the foster care system. With a recent arrest to his name, and now forced to leave the staffed care home he had spent years living in, Danny must find a new path into adulthood. Along the way, Danny unexpectedly reunites with Josh (Barry Keoghan), a social worker who once tried to help him in childhood but whose off-the-books approach fractured the relationship. Their reconnection inspires Josh to have another go at guiding Danny, this time through the responsibilities and hard truths of adulthood. While Josh makes a few wrong turns himself, his messy attempts feel true to life. Most encouragingly, they stem from how much he believes in Danny, and in supporting an environment where second chances are possible.
Building her story within this mentor-mentee structure, Bartley delicately explores how two lives intersect through all their coexisting emotions. Danny and Josh deal with varying degrees of inner conflict. They both wait for the sky to fall, and there’s a strong mirroring all the way through that ties their experiences together. Considered too much of a handful to join the foster family housing his younger brother, Jack (Louis Kirwan), Danny works to rebuild a strained image. He takes on a job, moves into an apartment, and stays largely out of trouble, all while thinking about Jack and wondering what’s become of their mother (Imelda May). In Danny, Josh recognizes a younger version of himself: a lost kid whose sibling feels miles away, and whose past resurfaces in small, everyday haunts. Time has given Josh a reset. He has cut out alcohol, found his North Star, and is about to become a father. While continuing to navigate personal conflict, he’s in a better place to mentor Danny from a more stable platform. The film branches out to balance both characters’ perspectives, demonstrating the power of having a lifeline you can count on.
“Lemonade” puts you in the passenger seat on a tense, restrained ride. One wrong turn has real consequences, and from an insider’s point of view, the road feels very lived-in. Bartley immerses us into a world of people either trying to keep Danny from falling through the cracks, or tempting him with more trouble. We drop into characters’ lives as though we know them, and the film comes alive through the interpersonal drama. There’s Mags (Eileen Walsh), who works at the home that Danny grew up in. Despite her firm stance on boundaries, she had been housing Danny’s pet dog Tess for years, speaking to an empathetic soul. Danny’s friend Jordan (Justin Daniels Anene), also in the foster care system, orbits around as a fellow youth faced with internal conflict. An unhoused woman (Mary Brighid McDonagh) befriended by Danny stands out with meaningful interactions, and for having a pet rabbit named “Rabbit De Niro.” The film paints a big community picture out of a small, everyday story.
Some character developments don’t quite resonate as much. Danny’s mother, offscreen but heard through phone calls, lacks emotional impact when she does feature in the film. Additionally, when Danny meets Mila (Carla Tous), his neighbor from across the street, their budding relationship goes largely underwritten. It lands more as an afterthought than a fleshed-out dynamic. Though, they do share a moving moment where Danny expresses his biggest fear: telling people he grew up in foster care. It’s a memorable scene that helps to de-stigmatize the subject matter. It also speaks to Bartley’s conscious use of language in her writing, as does a standout scene where Danny encourages his young friend not to use the word “junkie.”
A promising actor on the rise, Lewis Brophy turns in a compelling performance as the misguided and good-natured Danny. The material calls on Brophy to communicate the weight of sights unseen, from not knowing his mother’s whereabouts to not being able to live with his younger brother. Danny’s character is constantly on the verge of falling into a “What’s the point of trying?” mentality. There’s a clear throughline to why he has difficulty trusting people and being vulnerable with his emotions. Brophy’s sincere portrayal keeps you on his side, in that you never lose a connection to his journey. In the unpredictable phase between adolescence and adulthood, Brophy walks a fine balance of angst and confusion. Barry Keoghan also excels with an understated turn as the emotionally restrained Josh. There’s an intensity to the character that Keoghan underplays, like a hollowed shell of someone he used to be. In the midst of his own healing journey, he experiences several highs and lows over the course of a day. Rarely do we see Josh in moments of complete release, which makes the film’s emotional home run of an ending all the more insightful to his character.
Excellent performances aside, the film too often skims the surface of what the characters are navigating internally. Scattered, disjointed editing undercuts a lot of the compelling tension in Danny and Josh’s overlapping storylines. The story can feel disorienting as a result, muddling what the underlying focus ought to be. At times, the film relies on unnecessary metaphors to create a sense of purposefulness around the narrative. One of the most patent examples correlates to the film’s title, which Bartley associates with Mila’s character. During a night out with Danny, Mila explains the “When life gives you lemons…” phrase as her outlook on life, and later on in the film, it’s echoed aloud as narration to stress a pivotal scene. It’s a trite use of the phrase that draws undue attention.
Watching “Lemonade” makes it clear why Bartley has dedicated her narrative debut to all the good adults and foster families out there. She lovingly gets to the heart of how support systems really go a long way, and this is the film’s most resonating element. The story deftly uses interpersonal drama to show necessary resources that keep people from falling through the cracks. As shown through the characters, it takes heaps of patience, and an unwavering focus on root causes, to navigate your way through emotional pain. Bartley rewards such patience with a melancholic, hopeful ending that shines a light at the end of the tunnel.
