Pixie (2020)
2020
R
94 Minutes
To avenge her mother's death, Pixie masterminds a heist but must flee across Ireland from gangsters, take on the patriarchy, and choose her own destiny.
User Review
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WHAT I LIKED: There's a common conception that movie making is like mixing a bunch of ingredients together and hoping they'll stick, but that the more those ingredients contrast, the harder it is to get right. Surely if you're blending different genre tropes things might feel out of place, or if you mix the funny with the dark or the exciting with the sad, the intended impact of different moments might be undercut?
Plenty of films have proved this to be wrong however - in recent years Martin McDonagh's genius 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,' for example, or Bong Joon-Ho's brilliant 'Parasite.' These both put pretty extreme darkness against often laugh-out-loud humour, and show that audiences are more than capable of being taken on an emotional and genre-bending rollercoaster in the space of two hours if it's executed well enough.
Barnaby and Preston Thompson's 'Pixie,' is both funny and dark, as it follows the daughter of a Northern Irish gangster and her dangerous heist which puts her in trouble with a rival gang of Priests. The character stuff is delivered well such that you care for Pixie and the two young lads she picks up along the way, and the humour equally knocks it out the park. In large part there you can thank the script, but also the performances from the supremely quirky and confident Olivia Cooke, to the nervous and testosterone-filled Ben Hardy and Daryl McCormack, as well as the snappy direction and use of music.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: It may not have the super-serious, engaging undertones of the aforementioned films, but for what it is it's very well done.
VERDICT: It may not be thematically profound or serious, but 'Pixie,' is another example of a film which expertly mixes darkness with humour.0 member like this review.
