In the new indie film Love in Kilnerry, director and writer Daniel Keith stars as Gary O’Reilly, the sheriff of Kilnerry, a small town in New Hampshire fallen on hard-ish times. When the residents learn that there have been changes in their chemical plant that have released a chemical into the water that increases their libido, they are predictably perturbed—though some, like the local priest Father O’Dell (James Patrick Nelson) and shopkeeper Nessa Ward (Kathy Searle) find opportunity in the release of inhibitions that lead them all into humor and a bit of trouble.
Despite its promising concept, Love in Kilnerry fails to fulfill its goals, becoming instead a generic, paint-by-numbers comedy that somehow misses the mark on most, if not all, of its punch lines. There are humorless gay jokes (did you know that homophobes are really just repressed?), some rather strained sex jokes about the elderly, and repetitious, predictable scenes of presume excess. The shifts in perspective we might expect from a town plunged into an orgy of desire never really come to fruition. It’s too tame to really mine the ribaldry inherent in its premise, and too straight-laced to make anything other than a half-hearted attempt at humor.
The struggle here might very well be that Love in Kilnerry was originally conceived as a stage show, and the film itself falls into stagey performances and set-ups, creating a weird kind of fourth wall separation that might work in a theater but not when it comes to cinema. The cast do make game attempts at humor, with middling results—though I did find the priest attempting to hear two confessions at once and getting increasingly muddled as a result quite entertaining. There’s a weird, potentially amusing rivalry between Father O’Dell and the town mayor/pub owner, but this begins at such an extreme end that there’s nowhere for it to go. Keith as a lead is bland and never becomes less bland as the film goes on, and the little hints of humor, like one town elder fainting at the very mention of sex and being obsessed with the idea that she might be raped, are distinctly off-putting. What might have been an entertaining sex comedy, or at least a moderately amusing one, is just a bit boring.
Certainly Love in Kilnerry has its heart in the right place—despite some misfires on the humor, it’s never meanspirited or unpleasant to watch. But it’s just not very interesting. The potential of its premise could have been very off-putting or could have been very amusing, but I never expected it to be, well, dull. I wanted very much to enjoy Love in Kilnerry, but I got the impression I was watching a half-baked idea still baking. There are some promising ingredients there—this one just got pulled out of the oven too soon.