IN SEARCH OF THE SUBTEXT: INTERVIEW WITH LENNY ABRAHAMSON AND MARK O'HALLORAN DIRECTOR Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O'Halloran are widely acknowledged as two of the most original and exciting young voices in Irish cinema. They first collaborated on Adam and Paul (2004); a bleak but also blackly-humorous portrait of Dublin drug addicts caught in a spiral of fixes and failures. This grim scenario was substantially leavened by quirky and unexpected interludes of absurd dialogue and situations interspersed with moments of tenderness and genuine sympathy for the protagonists' hopeless fate. The film marked a return to working class themes and characters in Irish cinema and signalled a departure from the generic and rural narratives that increasingly dominated Irish film production during the 1990s. The film's originality and sophisticated sensibility was acknowledged in its widespread success at film festivals and among the Irish viewing public and it has since...
