3.5/5

Review by John P. Harvey and Michele E. Hawkins.

Ciáran (Colm Meaney) lives with and looks after his curmudgeonly old father, Fergus (Des Keogh), who, disturbed at the split in the family since his own grandfather’s brother emigrated to America, expresses his “dying” wish that Ciáran find his American second cousin, Fergus’s great-nephew, and invite him to Ireland — now.

Ciáran, with the family business to run and life to be lived, can’t see what the fuss is all about. The family schism happened generations ago, and Ciáran is actually tired of hearing the story of it over and over again.  But Fergus pesters and demands, so Ciáran begins the arduous task of trying to track down his long-lost cousin Barry in New York.

Thus it comes to pass, many international calls later, that Ciáran locates cousin Barry (Paul Reiser, who also co-wrote and directed) and invites him to meet the other half of his family, in Ireland.  When Barry actually takes up the invitation, the entire village celebrates the long-awaited reconciliation of the two arms of the family.

Of course, events conspire to turn this happy occasion on its head.  Ciáran decides that Cousin Barry is a just a rich, untrustworthy ne’er-do-well, so he takes steps to block what Ciáran believes to be Barry’s ambitions.  But, rather than gaining Ciáran the upper hand, this pokes the beast, and things go from bad to worse as the cousins set against each other.  New rifts replace old, and the short-lived peace that had settled on the descendants of the original estranged brothers threatens to bring about divisions all over town.

Can these now warring factions ever find a way through the morass of their own making?

Playing a man who, though good-hearted, won’t be taken for a fool, Colm Meaney gives the kind of excellent performance we’ve come to expect of him.  He embodies the Irishman who’s never left the village, who’s known by everyone, and who has long-since set aside his dreams of places to see in the great world beyond his humble home.

Paul Reiser is equally excellent as the successful property developer from New York who finds himself out of his depth as he politely navigates the embrace of people within a culture both foreign and personally uncomfortable; the tentative new ties with the cousin he hadn’t known existed; and a nosy, gossiping innkeeper (played by the marvellous Sheila Flitton) endlessly thrusting piles of towels at him.

The movie takes great advantage of its leads’ natural propensities — especially of the comic talent and cherubic appearance of Colm Meaney, the easy generosity of Paul Reiser, and the strangely appealing mischievousness of Sheila Flitton — in carrying the tale forward.  Heartwarming for the development of its protagonists and very amusing in the devious escalation of their mutual problem creation, The Problem With People offers a lighthearted perspective on the difficulties suspicious people can have in extending the hand of trust toward those they know are out to get them.

A great deal of fun, and well worth seeing.

Screening at Palace cinemas.