Loss is never an easy topic to deal with, especially for children. Animation is, perhaps, the perfect vehicle for delivering difficult messages and in the heart-lifting adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s story A Greyhound of a Girl, the circle of life is depicted with sincerity and adventure.
The original 2011 novel was inspired by Doyle’s own mother. Her mother died in 1928 of ‘the flu’ when she was just three years of age and her memories of her were scarce.
“As I started the book, I imagined a girl of my daughter’s age, meeting the ghost of her great-grandmother. The story grew as I imagined the girl talking to the ghost, then going home to her mother, then visiting her grandmother‚” recalls the The Commitments writer, about his children’s novel.
“My memories of writing the book are precious and the book itself is one of my favourites.”
After being “ravished by the story” and “touched by the autobiographical origins of the book”, Italian director and screenwriter Enzo D’Alò said he felt compelled to adapt it for film.
“The main theme of the book is delicate and difficult to describe, as it deals with loss,” says D’Alò, who is best known for his beautifully crafted 2D animated feature Pinocchio (2012).
Animation allows you to portray powerful messages in a very light and poetic way
— Enzo D’Alò
“At first, the idea of tackling the notion of loss bewildered me a little. But then the strength of the main characters allowed me to carry on with this beautiful family story, where four generations of women entertain a dialog between past and present, and the personality of each of them acquires more value and weight as the deep bond that unites them unravels,” he adds.
A Greyhound of a Girl tells the story of cheeky, flame-haired 11-year-old Mary O’Hara, who has an irrepressible passion for cooking and dreams of becoming a famous chef.
Her grandmother Emer, despite being in her 80s, is full of fun and energy, and encourages her to make this dream come true.
But when she is taken to hospital without much hope of ever getting out again, Mary and her mother Scarlett’s lives start to crumble. Hope comes in the form of Tansey, the ghost of Emer’s mum, and thus follows a journey across time.
Speaking via Zoom, the Italian director told me with sincerity how it’s important for him in making a film adaptation to have the same vision as the original writer; thus, he visited Ireland for the first time to meet with Doyle.
“Roddy is a wonderful person. In his books you can feel the social engagement. When we met he asked me why an animation?” he says.
“I explained that animation permits you to pass the message to everybody – adults and children. Seeing drawings come to life on the big screen gives you an easier point of access than live action. Animation allows you to portray powerful messages in a very light and poetic way.”
“He liked what I told him and he not only gave the rights to make the animation, but he followed the production advising on dialogue and expressions, and writing the lyrics of some of the songs. It was a wonderful collaboration,” adds D’Alò, who co-wrote the script with English writer David Ingham.
“When I showed Roddy the first scenes on the iPad in Dublin, I could see the happiness in his eyes, especially when he asked me how I made the house look just like his grandmother’s.”
Careful to depict accurately the landscape and colours of Doyle’s homeland, D’Alò and his team spent almost four months here, photographing every place shown in the film, including Dublin and the coastal regions of Wexford, Cork and even Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School, which inspired the cooking school Mary attends.
One of the funniest lines in the film is when Emer shows her dislike for her daughter’s cooking saying: “This spag bol is about as Italian as Bono”.
Whilst he fell in love with Ireland, D’Alò wasn’t so impressed with our supermarket shelves.
“I was shocked to see canned spaghetti. You won’t see that in Italy,” laughs D’Alò, who is a convert into the Irish dish of colcannon.
“A very popular channel in Italy about cooking wanted me to tell how it’s possible to do colcannon, so I made it live with an Italian cook.”
A Greyhound of a Girl’s powerhouse Irish voice cast includes Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin), Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters,), Rosaleen Linehan (The Matchmaker) and Charlene McKenna (Peaky Blinders), with young newcomer Mia O’Connor as Mary.
As a director he says his job is to convey settings, emotions and the personalities of the characters through images.
“I think everybody when they read a book is a little bit of a director. You have to imagine beyond the black lines and imagine the faces of the characters and their voices,” he enthuses.
Helping bring his ideas to life were Peter de Sève (Ratatouille, Monsters, Inc, Ice Age) who worked on designing the characters and fellow directors Marco Zanoni and Regina Pessoa who were responsible for the contrasting styles in the dream scenes.
D’Alò has lived through many technological changes in animation and in the case of A Greyhound of a Girl he uses two animation styles in sync, such as the 3D of the bicycle, with the 2D of Mary’s feet.
“There are also elements of special effects, such as the rain and the lights progress. But my challenge is to allow the story not to be disturbed by the digital effects.”
In terms of defining the message of his movie, D’Alò says the most important thing he hopes viewers takeaway is “to let children believe they can to follow their dreams”.
Secondly, he stresses the importance of encouraging relationships between children and their grandparents in modern society.
“It enables the passing of cultures and traditions, as seen in the cookery book that Emer gives Mary. Audiences the world over tell me this is a film of hope and when you leave this life, you leave a memory that will be remembered for a long time by future generations.”
And Doyle’s verdict?
“The faces, the voices, the colour, the pace, the humour – the whole thing was wonderful, and true to the spirit of the book I’d written,” he says. “My mother would have loved it, I think. I know I do.”
