♪ soft piano notes ♪
♪
NIALL: You should go and talk to someone.
Are you sleeping?
There's like, uh, like a service.
It's free. You might as well.
GILLIAN: Connell?
Would you like to come with me?
ALL: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
Happy New Year!
[all cheering]
ALL: Happy New Year! ‐ Happy New Year.
HELEN: Happy New Year, you.
[phone dings, buzzes]
Who is it?
‐ Uh, it's just an old school friend.
‐ You okay?
‐ Uh, yeah. It's just a Happy New Year thing.
ALL: Happy New Year!
[cheering]
‐ What do you mean?
LORRAINE: Are you on your own?
‐ No, I'm with Helen. What do you mean, a body?
Whose body, what?
LORRAINE: Rob Hegarty, sweetheart.
They pulled a body out of the river this morning.
[exhales]
‐ Okay, why don't we talk about how you're feeling.
‐ Uh, yeah, not great.
‐ I'm sorry to hear that.
When did you start feeling this way?
‐ Uh...
a couple of months ago.
January, I suppose.
‐ Okay.
Did something happen then, or did it just
come out of nowhere, do you feel?
‐ A friend of mine killed himself in January.
A friend from school.
‐ I'm very sorry to hear that, Connell.
‐ We, we hadn't really kept up with each other after college.
'Cause he was, uh...
He was just back in Sligo
and I was up here and everything, and um...
I guess I just feel guilty that I wasn't in touch with him more.
‐ I can understand that.
But however you might be feeling about your friend,
what happened to him is not your fault.
You are not responsible for the decisions he made.
‐ I never even replied to the last message he sent me.
‐ When you lose someone to suicide,
it can be natural to wonder if there's any more you could have done
in order to help this person.
I'm sure everyone in your friend's life is asking themselves
the same questions now.
‐ Yeah, but at least other people tried to help him.
♪ soft music playing ♪
♪
ERIC: He'd, uh, been drinking a fair bit.
He seemed a bit, um... you know, out of sorts, I guess.
CONNELL: Right.
KIERNAN: Never wanted to go home, you know?
He always wanted one more.
ERIC: Got into a few scraps.
Nothing serious, just... thought it was a laugh.
I tried talking to him, but...
[sobs]
HELEN: You look handsome.
‐ Ready, sweetheart?
‐ Marianne.
VAL: Thank you.
[indistinct chatter]
MAN: I'm so sorry. ‐ Thanks for the colors.
You look great.
Thank you.
WOMAN: I'm so sorry.
VAL: Thanks, love. Thanks for coming.
Connell. Good man, good man.
I hear you're doing great things above in Trinity.
‐ So sorry. ‐ Good man.
Thanks for coming.
Thank you.
♪
[indistinct chatter]
‐ How are things?
Who's this? ‐ Uh...
Helen. Uh, this is Eric.
‐ Girlfriend, is it? ‐ Yeah.
‐ Must be your fault this fella never comes home anymore.
‐ No, it's not her fault. It's my fault.
‐ I'm just messing.
Good of Marianne to come.
I thought she was off in Sweden or someplace.
‐ Yeah, she was. She's back for the funeral.
‐ She's gone very thin, hasn't she?
Here's herself.
Very good to have come all the way from Sweden, Marianne.
‐ It's nice to see you.
‐ Do you know Helen here?
MARIANNE: Course I do. We were in college together.
Hello, Helen.
ERIC: It's all friendly, I hope.
No rivalry, I mean.
‐ Behave yourself now.
‐ Why didn't you introduce me to any of your friends?
‐ I introduced you to Eric, didn't I?
‐ Only after he asked.
To be honest, you didn't seem like you really wanted him to meet me.
[Helen exhales]
If you didn't want me to come, you shouldn't have asked me.
‐ Okay, I'm sorry I asked you, then.
‐ What does that mean? [Connell sighs]
You're sorry I was there? ‐ No.
I'm saying if you got the wrong impression
of what it was gonna be like, then I'm sorry.
‐ You didn't want me there at all, did you?
‐ I didn't want to be there myself, to be honest.
Look, I'm sorry you didn't have a good time.
But like, it was a funeral. Don't really know what you expected.
‐ Well, you weren't ignoring Marianne.
‐ I wasn't ignoring anyone.
‐ But you just seemed particularly happy to see her.
‐ For fuck's sake, Helen. ‐ What?
‐ I mean, does every argument have to come back to this?
Our friend just killed himself, and now, you want to start
going at me about Marianne. Like, seriously?
And yeah.
I was happy to see her. Does that make me a monster?
‐ I've been very sympathetic about Rob and you know that.
But what do you expect me to do? Just pretend I don't notice
you're staring at another woman in front of me.
‐ No, I was not staring at her. ‐ You were, in the church.
‐ It wasn't intentional.
‐ Why do you have to act so weird around her?
‐ How I act with her is my normal personality.
I'm...maybe I'm just a weird person.
♪ somber music playing ♪
♪
LECTURER: Most of you will, I hope, have picked up on the fact that...
[voice fades, continues indistinctly]
This dismantling of the family trope is fairly radical.
The constitution itself quite literally defined the Irish...
[continues, indistinct]
[Latin prayers]
[breathes shakily]
[groans]
HELEN: Like, I want to be there for you, but you just won't let me.
I have tried.
And I feel like I'm holding on to other, like,
frankly legitimate worries or whatever
that existed before all this.
Before you felt like this.
And I can't sit on them 'cause you're feeling so low.
That's just not fair.
I really care about you.
I hate seeing you like this.
But I don't think this is working anymore.
I don't know if this was all the way working before, and now...
all this is just like...
[sniffs] exacerbated it, and...
‐ Okay.
I'm sorry.
‐ I'm sorry too.
GILLIAN: Do you have friends here in Dublin?
Anyone you're close with that you might talk to about how you're feeling.
‐ Um...
Niall, maybe. He's the one who told me about this.
‐ Well, that's good.
He's looking out for you.
Niall.
Okay.
‐ I have another friend that I'm pretty close with, but, um...
she's on Erasmus this year.
‐ I'm sorry. That sounds awful.
I liked Helen. ‐ HM.
‐ I did. I genuinely did.
I know she wasn't entirely fond of me, but...
it's hard to ignore that she made you happy.
‐ I, I don't know.
I don't feel anything.
Then I...
I find myself crying or having a panic attack
so presumably, I do feel it. Just, uh...
[clears throat]
It just doesn't connect.
‐ I understand.
‐ I know you do.
I'm really tired.
‐ You want to sleep?
We can keep Skype on.
Carry me over to your bed.
♪ soft music playing ♪
♪
‐ Is she a friend from college?
‐ We were in school together.
But, uh, she's in Trinity as well. It's Marianne.
She knew Rob, our friend who died.
But um...
she's away this year, like I said.
[moans contentedly]
You're awake.
‐ Morning.
[Connell sighs]
‐ Is she someone you might talk with about how you're feeling?
‐ She's been supportive about it.
And she's, um...
She's hard to describe, if you don't know her.
She's, um...
she's really smart.
She's a lot smarter than me.
We, we see the world in a similar way. And uh...
we've lived our life in the same place.
So obviously, it's, um...
It's a bit different being away from her.
‐ It sounds difficult. ‐ Mm‐hmm.
I don't really click with a lot of people.
I, I struggle with that, actually.
‐ Do you think that's a new problem?
Or is it familiar to you?
‐ Mm.
It's, uh, familiar.
I would say, um...
in school, I definitely felt that
feeling of isolation or whatever. But um...
People seem to like me. Everything, and...
here, I don't think that, uh...
people like me that much.
Uh, like Rob, my friend who, uh...
um, I wouldn't say that we clicked on a very deep level or anything.
But, um, we were friends.
And, uh...
I wouldn't say that we had a lot in common
in terms of interests or anything like that.
Definitely not politically, if we ever really examined that. But, um...
That stuff didn't really matter in school.
'Cause we were, we were in the same group of friends, so, you know?
‐ I understand that.
‐ And, uh, he... he did some stuff that I, uh...
I wouldn't have been a fan of, in terms of, like with girls.
But uh...
We were 18, you know. We just, uh...
we acted like idiots, and uh...
I think...
I felt a bit alienated with that stuff.
And, uh...
I think‐‐ I think I thought if I...
moved here...
I'd fit in better.
I thought, um...
I'd meet more like‐minded people but that just hasn't...
um...
[sobs]
I left Carricklea thinking I could have a different life.
But I... I hate it here and...
I can never go back.
Because those friendships are gone, and...
and Rob is gone and I, I can't see him again.
I can't get that life back.
I'm sorry. [heavy breath]
‐ You don't need to apologize.
[sobs]
♪ soft music playing ♪
♪
MARIANNE: She sounds nice.
‐ Yeah. ‐ Sounds good.
‐ Yeah.
‐ Well done, Niall.
[Connell chuckles]
How do you feel now?
‐ Uh, okay.
Just, um...
Flat, I guess.
‐ Mm.
‐ What?
‐ Do you ever feel...
I don't know.
Angry?
‐ Uh, about?
‐ About Rob.
After the funeral, did you feel angry?
‐ With him? ‐ No.
No, geez, no.
I know that's... that people feel that when someone...
I couldn't get off Facebook.
Everyone kept commenting on his wall.
‐ Yeah. ‐ Like, it made me furious.
Like, what do they mean?
All these people, like advertising their loss like that.
And who's it for? Not Rob, obviously.
And, like, what's the etiquette there?
Should I be liking every comment on his wall?
‐ Well, it sounds like you've worked through that anger.
[chuckles]
‐ [scoffs] No.
Of course, people can grieve how they want.
Sorry. ‐ I get it.
It feels a bit pointless.
‐ Yeah, I think that's it.
And everyone kept talking about...
what a great person he was.
How full of life, what a devoted son, and I get it.
But what, was that him?
‐ No.
He was insecure.
Obsessed with being liked.
I mean, I know I can talk. But...
I miss you.
‐ I miss you, too, Connell.
♪ "Everything I Am Is Yours" by Villagers ♪
♪
‐ ♪ I am just a man ♪
♪ Tipping on the wire ♪
♪ Tight rope walking fool ♪
♪ Balanced on desire ♪
♪ I cannot control ♪
♪ These ever changing ways ♪
♪ So how can I be sure ♪
♪ The feeling will remain ♪
♪ It'll always change ♪
♪ But everything I am ♪