Wild Mountain Thyme: All-star romcom goes viral for Irish accents and clichés
Written by News on 12/11/2020
The trailer for new romcom Wild Mountain Thyme has got everyone talking – in dodgy “Oirish” accents, it would seem.
Starring English actress Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan, who is from Northern Ireland, plus US stars Christopher Walken and Jon Hamm, the film is set in rural Ireland, a romance intertwined with a family dispute over a farm.
Released this week, the teaser for the film has been widely mocked on social media for its Irish clichés and the stars’ accents. Even the National Leprechaun Museum of Ireland – which celebrates Irish myth and folklore – isn’t happy.
Ouch.
And Dublin Airport is also on the case, requesting a call to the accent police.
The Irish Times film correspondent Donald Clarke has asked: “What in the name of holy bejaysus is this cowpat?”
On a positive note, he says the “accents aren’t that bad”. It’s the clichés he takes issue with – Blunt is a “feisty redhead”, Dornan talks to a donkey, a joke about Irish people being violent, a coracle, that sort of thing – saying it is “baffling that this class of stereotyping passes without comment in the United States”.
On social media, even Dornan’s accent has been criticised. Admittedly, he’s from Northern Ireland, but if anyone was going to pull off the Irish brogue it perhaps should have been him.
Some have compared the accents to Tom Cruise’s in much mocked 1992 film Far And Away.
The Irish Embassy in the US had this to say: “To be fair, Irish accents are hard (we struggle with them at times). But otherwise #WildMountainThyme looks great. And, in Jamie Dornan & Emily Blunt, presents a remarkably realistic depiction, visually at least, of the average Irish man & woman. Truly, we are a beautiful people.”
The film is set for release in December.
As Alan Partridge might say: “Dere’s more to Oireland, dan dis.”
(c) Sky News 2020: Wild Mountain Thyme: All-star romcom goes viral for Irish accents and clichés
