What Richard Did

Lenny Abrahamson’s latest is a portrayal of affluent Irish youth that examines weighty moral issues with calmness and integrity.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


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  • Director Lenny Abrahamson
  • Producer Ed Guiney
  • Screenwriter Malcolm Campbell
  • With Jack Reynor, Róisín Murphy, Sam Keeley
  • Ireland 2012
  • 87 mins
  • UK distribution Element Pictures

Lenny Abrahamson has convincingly depicted the world of Dublin junkies in Adam and Paul and of a desperate loner in a rural backwater in Garage. His latest is a portrayal of affluent Irish youth that is as compelling as his previous work, and confirms Abrahamson is emerging as a filmmaker of genuine significance. Richard (Jack Reynor) is seeing out the end of his summer holidays after his final year at school. A promising sports star with a bright future ahead of him, he spends his time hanging out with mates, proving himself a decent and popular lad who looks out for the younger members in his crowd, inspiring loyalty and respect from those close to him. Suddenly, a single, uncharacteristic incident changes everything for Richard, and his plans for the future could be derailed. With a script adapted by Malcolm Campbell from Kevin Power’s novel Bad Day in Blackrock, What Richard Did perceptively examines weighty moral issues with calm and integrity, and the young cast of relative unknowns put in exceptional performances.
Michael Hayden

Director statement

Reading the book, I started to think about Richard, the Alpha Male character. I’m always very interested in characters who are forced to deconstruct their sense of themselves, or for whom the conditions of their lives are radically changed, and Richard is one of those characters. For characters like Richard, who are not used to failure – especially at his age – any action that they think lets them down can have a catastrophic effect. I wanted to show a character attempting to fantasise himself back into the person he once was.

The book is fiction, but there are parallels with some real events. But from the beginning, it was my aim that these parallels would be broken in the film adaptation. I think we succeeded in this. What Richard Did is very, very different from the book, so I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s inspired by - rather than an adaptation of – Kevin Power’s novel. This story also seemed to me to be an opportunity to work in a different way to the way I’d worked on the first two films; looser, more responsive, building characters from cast rather than fitting actors into pre-existing moulds. Malcolm really responded to this challenge. He’s a subtle writer with a great ear and it was a collaborative relationship I enjoyed immensely. […] There is a poignancy to watching teenagers when you’re middle-aged. I wanted the film to be informed by that sense of longing or nostalgia. I hope younger people who watch the film might reflect on themselves with that degree of objectivity that a more mature style gives. Most of us know very little about ourselves. This is something that we begin to understand as we get older, but it’s an insight that’s largely hidden from teenagers. In What Richard Did we see a teenager having to digest a lifetime’s worth of self-disillusionment in one big blast. I try to really love the characters that I make films about, not in a sentimental way, but in the sense of feeling the wholeness of their condition. Richard has this swagger that I didn’t like in guys when I was that age, and at times he’s a baby. When we cracked how to represent both sides, it was really powerful. Being a parent of a small boy, added to my emotional connection to the Richard character. I found myself projecting my boy onto Richard. […] Although I never think of myself as someone who makes social chronicles, with What Richard Did, I wanted to show that you can make a serious film about this country, while looking at the people from this class, without it being some exposé of elitism. I hope it makes an audience think about where we are at the moment. Perhaps there’s a slight allegorical touch – in a sense that the disintegration of Richard’s easy self-regard mirrors the changes in the national psyche post-boom.
Lenny Abrahamson

Director biography

Born in Dublin, he started shooting shorts while studying philosophy there at Trinity College. After a period of post-graduate study in philosophy at Stanford University in California, he returned home to Ireland to concentrate on filmmaking. What Richard Did is his third feature; his previous award-winning films were the both critically and commercially acclaimed. The LFF-screened Garage, which was the recipient of the CICAE Art Cinema Prize in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2007, and Adam & Paul, which was an Official Selection at Berlin in 2005, were both written by Mark O’Halloran.

Filmography

1991 3 Joes [s]
2004 Adam & Paul
2007 Garage
2008 Dublin 26.06.08: a Movie in 4 Days [one ep]
2012 What Richard Did

Read the Time Out review.