Two Irish tweens flee their abusive homes on a bleak estate and ride a barge into the center of Dublin for a night of adventure and stark terror in Lance Daly's captivating feature "Kisses."
Foul-mouthed and full of life, the two pre-teenagers played memorably by Kelly O'Neill and Shane Curry escape their grim and cheerless environment to find even greater peril on the city's mean streets.
But Daly, who is writer, director and cinematographer, finds warmth and humor in their predicament as the pair discover a trust they've never known before.
The two kids, Dylan (Curry) and Kylie (O'Neill), are neighbors on a soul-destroying housing estate where the girl has a bullying older sister and an abusive uncle, and the boy tries to hide from the constant battling of his parents.
When his father punches his mother, Dylan jumps in but then has to run as the man turns on him. In a well-staged and frightening sequence, the boy races through the house with his father on his heels, making it out onto the street thanks to some quick thinking by his pal Kylie.
She grabs some cash from her own home and the pair hotfoot it to the nearby canal.
Starring: Kelly O'Neill, Shane Curry, Paul Roe
Kisses is relesed 17th July
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