Turning Green

Working through a mild case of xenophobia, cynical American-Irish teenager James (Donal Gallery) desperately wants to escape the tiny stereotype of a rural Emerald Isle town (old biddies, cursing priests, green lushness, and greener lushes) where he was dumped on his aunts after his mum died. His only pals are an 11-year-old brother who can't hold his Guinness and a cantankerous drunk gambler played by go-to Irish actor Colm Meaney; his biggest coming-of-age obstacle is not having enough privacy to jerk off. Writer-directors Michael Aimette and John G. Hofmann seem to have constructed their 1979-set, superficial debut around this last plot point: James's incessant masturbation. After spending so much time in the bathroom that his aunts are concerned, James gets sent to London to see a gastronomical specialist, and returns with a scheme to sell bootleg porn to every horny fool in town. Turning Green is, if nothing else, the world's loneliest teen sex comedy--the only nubile girl in town barely appears onscreen, and James's lone date with her is interrupted by two criminal cock-blockers (Alessandro Nivola as a threatening bookie, and Timothy Hutton, in a startling turn, as his brute enforcer) who implausibly spin the film into a sloppy gangster drama.