When Brendan Met Trudy

A charming trip into the exotic world of Irish people who love each other, When Brendan Met Trudy is perhaps the first Irish film ever that doesn't feature Colm Meaney. Instead, it has an incredibly broad-ranging performance by Peter McDonald as the titular Brendan, who meets the titular Trudy (Flora Montgomery) and then, well, you make the pun. There are lots of amusing references to great films as the nerdy, cinema-centric Brendan tries to get Trudy into his world of staying home and watching movies, and Trudy succeeds in getting Brendan into her world of going out and robbing houses. You have to be into the kind of referential humor that screenwriter Roddy Doyle (The Commitments, Snapper, The Van) layers into his script, but if you are then this one's the opposite of an Irish meal: It's a real treat that will leave you feeling uplifted and lighthearted.