Irish Film Institute -The Belly of the Whale

The Belly of the Whale

Director: Morgan Bushe


After breaking free from his foster home, feral teenager Joey Moody returns to Laytown, a rural Irish town just over the horizon, in a bid to reclaim his family’s caravan park and salvage his friendship with his best mate and drinking partner Lanks.

Meanwhile, on a mission to find the money to pay for his sick wife’s medication. Ronald Tanner, a fractured soul, risks his meagre life savings on a get rich quick scheme that ends in abject failure and humiliation at the hands of local big shot Gits Hegarty, pushing Ronald over the edge and off the wagon.

After Joey accidentally torches Ronald’s camper van and is forced to find the cash to repay him, the strange pair find themselves bonded together in misfortune. In an effort to change their crummy existence they concoct a slapdash plan to rob the Pleasurama, the local amusement arcade, and the domain of the iniquitous Gits.

All that stands in their way of the good life is a group of toughs, their own incompetence and fate itself.

Notes courtesy of Screen Ireland

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