Agnes Browne review

Anjelica Huston lived in Ireland as a child, so it's surprising that she has packed her sophomore directorial effort, Agnes Browne, with more stereotypes than you can shake a shamrock at. No image is too stock for her in this unashamedly sentimental vision of the Emerald Isle as a land of Guinness and song, although the fault may partly lie with Brendan O'Carroll's original novel, The Mammy.

As Agnes Browne, a big-hearted, salt-of-the-earth matriarch struggling to raise her children alone in Dublin circa 1967, she gets to play dowdy, glamorous, sensitive and bawdy (who ever thought we'd hear her say the word "wank?").

Huston is convincing, but little else in this forgettable feelgooder is. The last reel (with its laughable appearance by an ill-at-ease Tom Jones) resembles nothing more than a Children's Film Foundation production. And we all know just how in touch with reality they were...