The opening credits set the tone, tragi-comic, for this film & its rather ambivalent ending.
It is set against the lively backdrop of Dublin with its busy streets & pubs & stout/porter reminiscent of Flann O'Brien's haunts. Daydreamer Gulliver Shiels fantasizes about living on a paradisal island (Roratonga) far away from the noisy hubbub of Dublin. Penniless, he eventually comes up with an absurd notion of how to raise the 200 guineas for the trip. He is reminiscent of 'Billy Liar', fixated on a specific place rather than creating his own invented world (Ambrosia).
His dreams begin to get undermined, when he encounters, ironically on a beach of all places, Jennifer, a vivacious middle class English girl who seems attracted to him despite his apparent lack of interest. I did like the way the film flitted between imagined sequences & reality, like when Gulliver fantasizes about being on his paradisal island, in a ridiculous garb of grass-skirt & carrying a spear for fishing, only to be brought back to reality by the appearance of Jennifer, interrupting his fantasy. In a sense, this almost heralds the very conclusion of the film, if we view her as the woman who punctures Gulliver's dream.
The relationship between Gulliver & Jennifer, two opposites, does feel even more unbelievable than his bizarre attempts to obtain the money for his one-way trip -Gulliver's dreamy impractical personality seemed better suited to the young Irish country girl at the beginning who tolerated his quirky behaviour. I do think Beatty & Lister possess some chemistry, however, & Lister as Jennifer is a versatile actress, flitting between vivacity, but also pathos when she believes Gulliver is resolved to go to his island without her. They spend one apparent last evening in Dublin (with its myriad life) before they return to his lodgings & share a passionate kiss before she flees distraught in perhaps the most moving scene of the film (tragic). However, the resourceful Jennifer has one final trick up her sleeve as she perhaps engineers a bizarre situation of her own to prevent Gulliver from leaving.
The ending does feel bitter-sweet as Gulliver returns to his job as a civil servant with echoes of Gordon Comstock out of Orwell's 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying'. Matters of the heart take precedence over the world in his head. The film reminded me of 'I Know Where I'm Going' (Powell & Pressburger). The lead protagonist there does find her way despite being lost at first. You feel Gulliver has lost something of himself by the end of 'Another Shore'.
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