Few films in recent memory walk the line between dark comedy and devastating truth quite like Three Keenings. With exquisite tonal control and thematic precision, Oliver McGoldrick has crafted a short that is as unexpected as it is unforgettable a meditation on death, identity, and the strange roles we’re asked to play in life’s most private moments.

The film follows Oisín, a down-on-his-luck actor who stumbles into the role of a professional mourner, a literal performer of grief, hired to offer a convincing expression of loss at wakes. At first, he treats it like any gig: memorise, deliver, move on. As he journeys deeper into the rural funerary landscape of Northern Ireland, cracks begin to form in his carefully constructed emotional detachment. The grief he channels begins to feel eerily real not just in the eyes of the bereaved, but within himself.

McGoldrick’s brilliance lies in his refusal to treat this premise as purely metaphor or novelty. Instead, he digs deep into the emotional terrain, exploring how performance can sometimes reveal deeper truths than authenticity. It’s no accident that the tradition of “keening” an ancient Celtic ritual where unrelated mourners would vocalise grief forms the film’s conceptual core. This is not just a quirky plot point; it is the film’s emotional and cultural backbone.

The tone is masterfully balanced. Moments of unexpected humor give way to silence. Grief is awkward, surreal, communal, and at times even absurd and Three Keenings embraces all of that. With stunning support from a cast of Irish screen veterans and a quietly transcendent performance from Seamus O’Hara, the film avoids sentimentality in favour of something raw and lived-in.

This is a film about the roles we play; onstage, at wakes, in life and how sometimes, in pretending to feel something, we end up feeling more than we intended.

Verdict: ★★★★★

Isla Byrne