Pixie (2020)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Title: Pixie (2020)

Tagline: Shall we go see the big scary drug dealer now?

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller

Director: Barnaby Thompson

Cast: Olivia Cooke, Ben Hardy, Daryl McCormack, Colm Meaney, Alec Baldwin, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Fra Fee, Turlough Convery, Chris Walley, Pat Shortt, Frankie McCafferty, Ned Dennehy, Dylan Moran, Sebastian de Souza, Esme Thompson, Packy Lee, Olivia Byrne, Brenda McNeill, Barbara Adair, Donal O'Farrell, David Rawle, Eoin Duffy, Endang Ward, Stephen Walsh, Karen Smithson, Levi O'Sullivan, Charlie Kranz

Release: 2020-10-16

Runtime: 94

Plot: To avenge her mother's death, Pixie masterminds a heist but must flee across Ireland from gangsters, take on the patriarchy, and choose her own destiny.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Pixie Hardy is the biggest fish of her age group in the very small pond of Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland. She is also the stepdaughter of the area's most notorious gangster.

The movie opens with her scheme to get revenge for her mother's murder going catastrophically wrong. A murder and a hit-and-run later, Pixie finds herself on the run with two townie losers, caught between her stepfather's henchmen and a gang of murderous Catholic priests.

Olivia Cooke plays the title role with confidence, poise, and the beginnings of a smirk always dancing at the corner of her mouth. She is not amoral, exactly, but her morality is quite unconventional. She has a really warm and close relationship with her stepfather, despite her suspicions regarding his culpability in her mother's death, and gets on well with her half-sister too. Her relationship with her stepbrother is a bit more... acrimonious.

Ben Hardy and Daryl McCormack, as the two townie losers who find themselves along for the ride, are pretty impossible to dislike -- for the audience and for Pixie. And despite being in over their heads the entire movie, they acquit themselves quite well against a number of adversaries who have felled much more seasoned criminals.

Colm Meaney and Alec Baldwin, as Pixie's stepfather and the leader of the murderous clergy respectively, make for fun antagonists.

There is very little about this movie that is new, but seeing these tropes play out against the beauty of the Irish countryside makes it feel a bit more fresh.