{"id":484634,"date":"2026-05-14T17:19:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484634\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:19:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:19:56","slug":"first-look-review-barry-keoghan-gives-a-tense-psychologically-uneasy-performance-in-butterfly-jam-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484634\/","title":{"rendered":"First Look review: Barry Keoghan gives a tense, psychologically uneasy performance in Butterfly Jam \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Butterfly Jam<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 \ue9d7<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Director:<\/strong> Kantemir Balagov<\/p>\n

Cert:<\/strong> None<\/p>\n

Starring:<\/strong> Talha Akdogan, Riley Keough, Barry Keoghan, Harry Melling<\/p>\n

Running Time:<\/strong> 1 hr 42 mins<\/p>\n

Speaking to us after a morning screening, Kantemir Balagov<\/a>, director of this singular family drama, explained that he originally planned to shoot the film in Russia \u2013 setting for Beanpole, a critical smash for him at Cannes in 2019 \u2013 before the war in Ukraine<\/a> caused the production to move to New Jersey.<\/p>\n

That adds a familiar colour to this tale of the Circassian diaspora. Barry Keoghan<\/a> and Riley Keough<\/a> (neither surname yelling of the Caucasus region) play Azik, widowed brother, and Zalya, fraught sister, running a diner that serves, apparently, the best delen outside Nalchik. <\/p>\n

So fine is Azik\u2019s version of that cheese and potato dish that a well-off associate is keen on luring him to a posher restaurant. Meanwhile, Pyteh (Talha Akdogan), Azik\u2019s teenage son, is excelling as a wrestler.<\/p>\n

This version of Butterfly Jam, opening the Directors\u2019 Fortnight strand, allows in the old debate about how much immigrants lose or gain when they assimilate. \u201cYou became so f**king American,\u201d Azik says to his pregnant sister. <\/p>\n

For the most part, however, the drama is taken up with the community\u2019s internal concerns. Sister and brother are close \u2013 briefly acting out what I take to be a Circassian dance \u2013 but seem headed for a crash. Pyteh has taken pity on a troubled African-American schoolmate. More Caucasian shades on universal concerns await.<\/p>\n

It is faintly jarring to see Keoghan as the widowed father of a 16-year-old (still just 33, the Irishman probably is playing up a few years), but otherwise this could hardly be a more characteristic role: tensed up, psychologically uneasy, forever mobile. <\/p>\n

The film is very much about male discomfort with tenderness, and Keoghan neatly communicates his internal conflicts in a mature performance. Keough continues to make her case for being one of the era\u2019s great chameleons.<\/p>\n

A newly shot montage before the screening reminds us that Martin Scorsese<\/a>\u2019s Mean Streets played at Directors\u2019 Fortnight in 1974. Among the several reminders of that Italian-American drama in Butterfly Jam is Harry Melling<\/a>\u2019s decent turn as a troubled young man who enjoys irresponsible gunplay. He is much less cool and charismatic than Robert De Niro\u2019s<\/a> Johnny Boy in the earlier film, but that uncertainty suggests he may be even more dangerous. <\/p>\n

The opening hour of Butterfly Jam (genuinely named for jam made from butterflies) works well enough. Jomo Fray\u2019s camera, rich in gluey browns, gives us a version of the United States whose look has barely altered since the 1970s. The four principal actors grate against one another with convincing vigour.<\/p>\n

Not everyone will ride the narrative speed bump encountered as the picture rolls into its third act. The shift from one sort of film to another is jarring. The introduction of a stranded pelican feels like one enormous metaphor too far. The unlikely celebrity cameo at the close should, however, win over a few resistant brains. That scene also taught me something I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Butterfly Jam \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 \ue9d7 Director: Kantemir Balagov Cert: None Starring: Talha Akdogan, Riley Keough, Barry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[69378,11519,18,117,66776,19,17,210987,32886,27539],"class_list":{"0":"post-484634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-barry-keoghan","9":"tag-cannes-film-festival","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-harry-melling","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-kantemir-balagov","16":"tag-martin-scorsese","17":"tag-riley-keough"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116574081946220969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}