It’s easy to think that Olivia Colman has been in far more things in the past year or so than she actually has.
They were certainly high profile - The Crown of course, playing the middle-aged Queen Elizabeth, Oscar nominations for The Lost Daughter, The Father – and a win for The Favourite. And her acceptance speeches are certainly memorable.
A little film called Joyride – showing at the British Film Festival - is prime Olivia, albeit with a miniscule budget. It’s an indie Irish film, made by a pair I’ve never heard of - writer Emer Reynolds and director/editor Ailbhe Keogan.
Photo: Vertigo Films
But if the personnel are unfamiliar, the story is as old as the mountains of Mourne.
A young boy is on the run – in this case from his ne’er do well Dad – and falls in with an unlikely travelling companion.
It’s Colman sporting - as far as I can tell - a perfectly serviceable Irish accent. I’m sure the all-Irish crew would have pulled her up if it wasn’t. And she has a new-born baby in tow - one she’s planning to offload as soon as possible.
I suspect a little backstory may come in handy here. Joyride actually opens in a pub, where a fundraiser is being held for the boy’s late mother - his name’s Mully, by the way.
Mully endears himself immediately to me with his party trick - a spirited version of the old Cab Callaway number ‘Minnie the Moocher’
But Mully’s Dad was a real-life moocher, who steals the collection for his own nefarious purposes. So Mully pinched it back from him, then stole a car to escape with it. Not realizing that both Olivia and the baby were asleep in the back.
All clear? Then let’s get on.
Things get off to a bad start between Mully and this strange woman who seems to have so little mothering instinct for her baby that she didn’t even bother to name her.
She takes inspiration from a visiting small bird – the robin, I suspect blew the entire special effects budget of Joyride - and then reveals her own name.
Baby Robin and mum Joy are planning to drive across country to reach Robin’s forever home.
Mully is appalled, but he’s hardly in any position to judge, driving someone else’s car with a bundle of money stolen from the Cancer Society in his back pocket.
Like so many previous Irish road movies, the actual details and destination of Joyride’s journey are less important than watching Mully and Joy bickering, bargaining, bonding and unbonding over an entertaining hour and a half or so.
Both Mully and Joy are being pursued – Mully by his cartoonishly villainous father, and Joy by, frankly, her equally two-dimensional refusal to take charge of her baby.
But it’s all a pretext to watch the pair negotiate a working relationship – they seem to take it in turns to be the responsible adult.
This is young Charlie Reid’s debut as Mully – he was possibly hired as much for his confidence with babies and cars as for any formal training.
This is not Colman’s first rodeo, of course. She’s picked up a staggering 97 TV and film awards over the years, along with countless more nominations.
Her secret’s all in that expressive face. She can switch from anger, to guilt, to grief, to guile to, yes, joy in the blink of an eye.
I don’t know how she does it – I’m not convinced that she does either, except she seems incapable of a false performance.
Whether it’s a big-budget project – she’s about to appear in both Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, and a Marvel TV series, opposite Samuel L Jackson – or a little festival independent like Joyride, Olivia Colman will only ever bring her A game to it.
As always, a joy to watch.
