Pyjama girls

Directed by Maya Derrington

YOU WILL, no doubt, have encountered the odd feature article bemoaning (or celebrating) the current tendency for working-class girls to wear pyjamas all day. The last thing we want is a patronising documentary on the topic.

Happily, this is not that film. Maya Derrington, one member of the innovative Still Films company, did, indeed, set out with notions of documenting the sartorial phenomenon. However, after rubbing up against various citizens of Ballyfermot, she ended up developing a skilfully composed, properly moving study of two loud-mouthed, hugely funny teenage girls.

Lauren Dempsey and Tara Sallinger, the film’s subjects, suffer from many of the social ills that plague working-class Dublin. Lauren’s conspicuously invisible mother has been involved in drugs and a charismatic Grandmother raised the girl. Initially a good student, Lauren saw her grades slip after a few years (why?) and now spends most of her days chattering on the bus and the apartment walkways.

More than anything else, Pyjama Girls, filmed in a grainy digital medium, scored to cool bleeps by Dennis McNulty, is a study of friendship. Though the film reveals no serious boozing or drug-taking, we do end up worrying for the subjects, but feel – or hope – that their support for one another will protect them from the most pressing dangers.

Pyjama Girlsis also very funny. Among the outbursts of absurdity that Derrington uncovers – some beyond the imaginings of the maddest surrealist – we enjoy a bunch of kids turning a large cardboard box into a vehicle for various ingenious practical jokes. For all the grimness, laughter is everywhere about.

It is only decent to point out that, made on a low budget, unburdened by spectacular vistas, the film does not exactly demand to be seen on the big screen. One also has to questions the decision (hard to take for many Dublin viewers, I suspect) to subtitle every line of dialogue.

Nonetheless, Pyjama Girlsoffers further proof that Irish documentary cinema is in spitting good health. See it in paisley drawstrings.