Dublin looks gorgeous, the friendships feel real, and the love stories keep looping back like déjà vu. Because when it comes to romance, we all have goldfish memory.
Calling Goldfish Memory “Love Actually meets (US) Queer As Folk” is a bit too neat and tidy, but yeah – you can see why the comparison keeps popping up.
In fact, this is kind of the version of Love Actually that might’ve worked better: instead of juggling a dozen storylines until half of them feel like sketches, it sticks to three or four central threads and actually gives them room to breathe. At the same time, it borrows a little from Queer As Folk (US) in the way it leans into community – that shared gay and lesbian social orbit where friendships can be as intense, intimate, and complicated as the romances. And when Angie jokes about the oddly “incestuous” vibe of a Dublin lesbian dinner party, there’s even a faint wink of Go Fish in there. (Though it is kind of funny that Red seems to have no gay male friends at all, like he’s been politely written into a different postcode.)
The two characters who feel the most complete – and honestly the most watchable – are Red (Keith McErlean) and Angie (Flora Montgomery). Their friendship is the film’s strongest heartbeat, and the ease between them makes the quieter scenes land.
That said, once the plot starts steering into familiar lanes, it loses a bit of bite. A couple of arcs go exactly where you expect, which dulls the emotional punch: even when the film hits genuine feeling, it doesn’t always sting the way it should, because you can see the turns coming from a mile away. There are also moments where the world feels slightly unreal – like Dublin is populated almost exclusively by bisexuals, gays, lesbians, or people “mid-turn.” The lone straight guy, Tom (Sean Campion), ends up as the designated sad sack, complete with tragic pick-up lines about goldfish memories and reading Goethe in German. And yes, it’s hard not to think of Tales of the City when that kind of “look how cultured I am” flirting shows up.
Even with all that, the film has a huge plus: Dublin looks fantastic. The festival print you saw might’ve looked like it was taped off TV (ouch), but the city still shines – and it does that thing good location shooting does, where you suddenly remember how pretty a place is. Especially the Liffey, and all those bridges.
So, flaws and all, it’s still a solid, enjoyable watch. And the central idea really works: in love, people have “goldfish memory” – we forget the bruises, the stress, the mess of it… and then we dive in again like it’s the first time. The ending goes for warmth and closure, and honestly, it suits the film. Predictable? Sure. Satisfying? Also yes.
