OUR CHILD ACTORS ARE RUBBISH!

Had a look at the famous French film Forbidden games this week. Now there's an impressive movie using children in lead roles. So how come Irish movies with children are so bad? From the awkward acting in Kisses to the dire Into the West to the amateurish Mickybo and me to rubbish like Under the hawthorn tree. It seems that when Irish filmmakers use children it's for family-oriented stuff. Forbidden games is a powerful anti-war film that uses natural acting from kids. In this country it's usually Tops of the town-type acting from the junior members of cast. When the acting is uniformly bad the directors are at fault. So that must be it: our directors are not talented enough to get good acting performances out of children.