I’ve always had a soft spot for Meave Higgins and her wryly oddball sense of humour. Ever since catching her ‘mockie ah’ cooking programme (Fancy Vittles), I’ve never been able to look a coffee mug straight in the eye again. I’ve also pretty much followed everything else she’s done since then with a lot of interest. It came as a bit of a surprise, therefore, to find her in a new, supernatural comedy movie called ‘Extra-Ordinary’.
Supernatural comedies tend to be very hit or miss, probably because it’s so difficult to develop a successful merging of two such contrary genres. For every hit (Ghostbusters, The Frighteners.) there are probably ten that are financial disasters (High Spirits etc.) and its always a bit of a risky genre to work in. The blurb for this one runs as follows:
Rose, a sweet, lonely driving instructor in rural Ireland, is gifted with supernatural abilities. Rose has a love/hate relationship with her ‘talents’ & tries to ignore the constant spirit related requests from locals – to exorcise possessed rubbish bins or haunted gravel. But! Christian Winter, a washed up, one-hit-wonder rock star, has made a pact with the devil for a return to greatness! He puts a spell on a local teenager- making her levitate. Her terrified father, Martin Martin, asks Rose to help save his daughter. Rose has to overcome the fear of her supernatural gift & work with Martin to save the girl, get the guy and be home in time for a light snack…maybe a yogurt or something…
As you can see, Extra-Ordinary reads like a kind of “Cosy” Ghostbusters. The humour’s sweet and relatively light but it’s also quite loufoque and beautifully surreal/twisted at times. In rural Ireland, it’s not the castles that are haunted, so much as the dustbins, smalls stones and pieces of cheese. Part of the main character’s backstory involves a tragedy around a “haunted pothole” and there are some very funny intentionally dated/cheesy videos from the protagonist’s deceased father – a psychic ads “spiritual investigator”.
As Rose Dooley, a driving instructor with a secret power, Higgins plays her usual persona; a shy but sharply funny woman, somewhat worn down by events outside of her control. Having used that character-type multiple times, Higgins knows her to the core and brings a great level of authenticity to the role that adds weight to the overall movie.
Anyway, if this sounds like you, you can find the trailer HERE.