May contain minor spoilers.Rarely have i been so captivated by an acting performance. Something can be said for the fact that not a lot happens in the first 35 minutes or so yet I was intrigued as to where this was going. Pat shortt is nothing short of unbelievable (if the Irish readers will pardon the pun). Shortt plays Josie, a quiet, lonely man with no relatives living locally and no friends to speak of. Everyone either bullies him or treats him like the village idiot, someone you never give a second thought to. He has never traveled far form the village he was born in. Any attempts he makes or has made to become intimate fail.The only thing in his life is his Job (At a local garage/shop) and his only pastimes are drinking at the local bar, and walking alone in the countryside.A chance of friendship comes from a 15 year old boy who is hired to help at the garage at weekends. Will this young kid treat him like everyone else or could this be a genuine friendship or possibly be misunderstood as something darker. It certainly a bleak movie but very well filmed on what was surely a very small budget. The Irish landscape almost feels as bleak as the movie but that only adds to story.Being from Ireland, I can say that there is at least one Josie in every town. Where you can sometimes be surrounded by people and be lonely. and in rural Ireland where there are less people about the loneliness could be unbearable. In fact the world is full of Jessies that we don't pass a second thought to.Unless you are from Ireland you may need subtitles for this movie. It's normal speaking and slang and an Irish native will have no problem understanding the phrases. This was a bold move by the makers, It's an Irish movie but the theme is universal "Loneliness" they have made no attempt to Americanize the movie by toning down the language and accents. So many "Orish" movies are ruined by an American cousin or foreign visitor come by just to appeal to an international audience. The people in this movie are Irish, and that's how we talk. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie yes it's emotional, but brilliant.

Pat Shortt's performance makes this movie critically acclaimed the best Irish film ever made.The story follows Josie (Shortt) a good natured man with learning disabilities which are clearly shown in the movie when he is unable to stand up for himself nor can he interact with the fellow members of the town no more than a mere salut. Josie works in a garage of little interest to the owner Mr. Gallagher (John Keogh) as his wish is to sell the site when an offer arises. Josie employs a young teenager David (Conor Ryan) to help on weekends and soon he befriends with the boy.As Josie befriends David he treats him as an adult. He also befriends a horse which he sees as the same as himself as both the man and the horse are trapped with no way out. He soon becomes the town pariah on a mistake he makes due to his mental disability.This movie is a heartwarming slow-paced sad but enjoyable movie as Shortt shows great acting as Jodie however an over statement to say the least as being the best Irish movie ever made as it is a great performance by all actors but a dense storyline lets down 'Garage'.

Melancholy.In the film Garage, directed by Leonard Abrahamson, we see a good example of the melancholy of a man who is alone, appreciated by many people, but this people do not go a step further in their relationship with him.We can see in Josie's life (Pat Shortt) the happiness of the person that is not literate and does not know anything about real life, and thinks that everything is OK and that everybody takes care of him, as a childish thought about the society, but some events are going to change his mind.This sense of melancholy is given also, apart from the performance of Shortt, by the type of shots appearing in the film, mainly by extremely long shots, covering as much images as possible, even if there are people inside the frame. This type of shots give us the feeling of loneliness that Josie feels, although he does not realize of it, and transfer us the loneliness of the Irish countryside, sad, rainy and plain. We can see that the camera is just a witness of what is happening, it is not a watcher of the action, as an example there are not counter shots or over-the-shoulder shots, everything is just like a photography, where the director wants to have as much visual information as possible. The lack of conversation is solved by this use of the camera, and the absence of a real action is not the important characteristic of this film, but something that aims us to think about the film, not just to see it.Darío Metola Rodríguez.

The movie has a lot of potential with good acting but it did not connect to me although having sympathy for the story and the script certain scenes where too much for my eyes the film lacked a certain aesthetic touch. The pace of the movie is pretty slow and varies little in rhythm. The scene on the lake, and the horse greeting - feeding were one of the best scenes but that's about it. The actors did not have the change to show off their talents as the dialogs are filmed as if it was a sort of documentary. The quality of the image disturbed me a lot especially the light effects (or lack of it). I missed a certain flair and swing that exploits more the soul of the main character.(There where many that left the cinema during the film)