The recent trailer for the Ireland-set rom-com “Wild Mountain Thyme” has yielded the most widespread derision for Irish accents on a film since Brad Pitt’s IRA terrorist character in “The Devil’s Own”.
John Patrick Shanley’s upcoming movie, based on his 2014 Broadway play “Outside Mullingar,” stars the likes of Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm and Christopher Walken and basically follows two farm neighbors (Dornan, Blunt) whom are obviously meant to be together but he’s shy, she’s resentful, and a rich American cousin (Hamm) gets in the way.
The trailer launched earlier this week and all the talk centered around both the use of old Irish cliches, and also about Blunt, Dornan and co-star Christopher Walken’s questionable attempts at Irish accents from the County Mayo region. Dornan, who hails from County Down in Northern Island, has faced much of the scorn as it’s thought he “should know better”.
In Ireland itself though, the accent talk became one of widespread and merciless derision. Dublin Airport, the National Leprechaun Museum, the Irish police, and countless local comedians and stars have joined in the mockery with national broadcaster RTE publishing the story titled: “Irish accent emergency declared after Wild Mountain Thyme trailer.”
The BBC got in on it with an investigation into how hard it is to master an Irish accent, even the Irish embassy in the U.S. got involved with a diplomatic tweet saying: “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.”
“Wild Mountain Thyme” will hit cinemas and digital on December 11th.
Source: THR
