Ondine

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Ondine (C). This Irish movie is about a fisherman named Syracuse (Colin Farrell, Crazy Heart). He's a sad sort of guy -- he's a recovered alcoholic, his marriage is busted up, and his precious little girl Annie is in a wheelchair and has serious kidney disease. But his luck seems to change when his fishing net pulls in a seriously waterlogged woman with a strange accent. She calls herself Ondine and at first begs Syracuse not to let anybody else see her. He lets her stay as the seaside cottage his ma used to live in, but Annie sniffs out his secret soon enough and becomes convinced that Ondine is really a selkie -- a sort of water fairy that can change shape from a seal to a human, or something like that. Is she really? And if so, will her selkie husband come try to take her away from Syracuse and Annie? I can go along with this kind of fairy-tale stuff, but as my grade shows this movie didn't really work for me. I will add that I thought Ondine was only moderately pretty, but she has a great figure, and the director doesn't neglect to show it off....