Goldfish Memory

There comes a time in every little girl’s life when her mother anxiously enters the room demanding that her progeny put down that copy of Albert’s Quantum Mechanics and Experience to best facilitate a ‘little talk’. “Now dear,” she says, “you must promise mummy that you will never, ever play with any boys who quote liberally from German writers. Even if they seem terribly nice, if you hear something that sounds remotely Nietzschean, for example, then you’ll know that they’re not a good sort. Only self-obsessed types go in for that kind of thing. Oh, and always wear clean knickers in case you get hit by a speeding juggernaut.”
Alas, the female characters of Goldfish Memory don’t appear to have attended nearly closely enough to the aforementioned lecture. (Although they presumably took something in, because all of the underwear on display is quite immaculate.) Three of them let the side down completely by succumbing to the ‘charms’ of a Rainer Maria Rilke quoting professor who likes to be whispered to in German at intimate moments. Good grief, were all the guys into crush-porn and nasal sex already taken or what?
Teutonic fumblings aside, Goldfish’s plot consists largely of a series of couplings and uncouplings, of people getting it on, and getting kicked off again. Clara (O’Shaughnessy) sees lover Tom (Campion) with Isolde (Glascott), and ends up seeking solace in the arms of Angie (Montgomery). In no time straight girls are getting converted to the ways of the pussy, gay men are waking up beside lesbians and everyone’s engaging in a copulating version of Swap Shop minus Noel Edmonds.
The resulting film looks and feels very contemporary, full of primary colours and clean lines; basically think Dublin as built from an Ikea flatpack. Even more impressively, debutante director Gill has managed to film sex scenes that don’t make you wilt away with embarrassment, thereby enabling the portrayal of shifting sexualities in a fun, sensual way that doesn’t cause offence to half the planet.
Okay, so Goldfish Memory is hardly life-changing stuff, but it is bright and sparky – a pretty little firecracker of a movie that’s destined to appease girlie student types everywhere.

86 mins. Cert 15pg. Opens September 5.