‘One Sweet Hour’: One Aging Elvis Impersonator. One Monk. Two Estranged Irish Brothers Facing Trauma.

Gerry is in his 50s, and he is a suspicious mind who lives in Heartbreak Hotel. Well, he actually makes a canal boat his permanent home. After all, he earns a living by impersonating Elvis Presley in various rural locations across Ireland, allowing him and the audience to enjoy One Sweet Hour. And being a bit of a hound dog, he usually has a local female waiting for his one visit a year.

Nonetheless, Gerry is lonely. And he is all shook up when, one day, his brother Colum shows up unannounced on the boat, wanting to spend time after their father’s death. Oh yeah, Colum has lived in a monastery under a vow of silence for 30 years.

Gary Lydon (The Banshees of Inisherin), in his first film released after his death earlier this year, is Gerry, while Brian F. O’Byrne (Conclave) portrays Colum. The odd couple embarks on a journey along the canals of the magical Irish Midlands – at the pace of 2 miles an hour. And they interact as Gerry dances around childhood trauma and inner demons.

One Sweet Hour, directed by Declan Recks (Eden, The Flag, Tarrac), based on a Eugene O’Brien (Black ’47, Tarrac) screenplay, was produced by David Collins, and Eamon Hughes and features cinematography by Owen McPolin and editing by Gareth Young. The Samson Films production, which is mostly in black-and-white, is ready to take center stage in its world premiere on Nov. 16 in the main competition program of the 30th edition of Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).

THR can now exclusively premiere a clip from One Sweet Hour.

O’Byrne and Recks talked to THR about the collaborative atmosphere on the set of One Sweet Hour, how its upcoming premiere means additional emotions for them following the sudden death of Lydon and what audiences can take away from the road movie – well, boat movie, to be precise.

The boat idea actually came from an experience that writer O’Brien had. “Eugene and I have worked together a lot over the years, and he told me about this idea,” Recks recalls. “He had done a documentary where he was himself on a boat, about 10, 15 years ago. And he just found it very relaxing, very meditative, very zen-like – going two miles an hour and all that.”

The two had also previously discussed an Elvis idea. “We had this character, an Elvis impersonator, that we tried to get into a film years back, and the story didn’t work,” the director tells THR. “But the character had been hanging around. So we decided to put Elvis on the boat.”

Giving him an estranged brother was no huge leap of faith, given that O’Brien has written a lot of stories about family. “So, we [figured] we would put the two of them in this confined space on a very slow road trip and see what comes out of it,” Recks says.

Did O’Byrne come on board, literally, as a man of god due to his Conclave experience, you may wonder. “At least, it wasn’t a priest in this one, so it was a different branch of the clergy,” the actor jokes. “They gave me a call, and I had known Gary and Eugene. I knew Eugene just tangentially, and I’ve been a fan of his work. And I worked with Gary just really briefly over the years, but I knew him for about 30 years. I had not met Declan before. And it all happened pretty quickly.”

The stars, the director and the writer spent some time together working on the script and the characters in advance of the shoot. The whole process of making One Sweet Hour was actually collaborative and relaxed, they highlight. “We are older, and none of us was trying to prove anything. There was no competition or envy,” O’Byrne tells THR. “And because we had worked only a very small amount with each other, Gary and I got a chance to get to know each other, and that was really lovely.”

Concludes the actor: “It became Zen filmmaking in a way, in that we were on the boat, and it just moved along at that slow pace. And when we had to do a second take, everyone had to sit, and the boat had to move slowly, slowly back. You can’t just turn it around. So there was a built-in pause in the whole thing, and we were blessed with really glorious weather.”

Adds Recks: “You are only allowed 15 people on the boat, so we were in our own little world for the 10 days that we were on it. It was just two actors and the rest was crew, and that was it. We were left alone, left to our own devices. It was lovely, and it just meant that it was a very small, tight-knit bunch on the boat, and it just didn’t feel rushed at any time.”

Lydon’s death at the end of April is still on his creative partners’ minds. “It was a terrible shock,” says Decks. “The only consolation for us was that we all felt Gary had such a good time while making the film.”

O’Byrne echoes the feeling of shock and sadness. “There is just an extra weight to the film now for us who participated in it,” he shares. “His sons, his brothers and his partner all came forward and said, ‘This was one of the happiest experiences Gary’s ever had. I think any of us involved in it would look back say [the same]. It was just beautiful. And I think for family and friends of Gary and us all, it means a lot that we got to share a really lovely experience with him and that he was so genuinely pleased with the whole experience.”

One Sweet Hour is a bittersweet film. And Lydon’s family, friends and collaborators will now see it with an extra dimension of meaning and emotion. “It’s a very different experience for us, I imagine, because we have this other layer,” O’Byrne tells THR. “And in a way, it’s an ode to Gary. There is another film that he did afterwards. But if this is his last film, it’s an extraordinary one.”

Lydon’s Gerry lights up when he performs as Elvis. The star must have really enjoyed those scenes then. Well, actually… “It’s funny – that was the thing he was most worried about,” shares Decks. “He was absolutely terrified. I knew he could sing. And we got him a movement coach. We had to push him a little bit. But he absolutely threw himself into it, and I agree – I don’t think you’d know from looking at it that he was terrified.”

But going back to how Gerry feels very different when he is on stage, that’s where the title One Sweet Hour comes into play. “It’s his opportunity to escape the trauma that he’s carrying,” explains Recks. “He gets up on the stage, he puts on this costume and he puts on a mask. And for that time that he’s up on the stage, everything else is gone – all that matters is the music.”

O’Byrne’s Colum handles the trauma differently. “He literally puts on a costume as well, but he does the opposite,” he tells THR. “He becomes silent and just anonymous and searches for a spiritual way out without ever dealing with it. So neither of them has ever dealt with what happened.”

The creative team knows that the themes explored in One Sweet Hour will be recognizable to people in Ireland and beyond. “Everyone knows somebody who’s had trauma within their family, but in Ireland, we’ve also had trauma brought on us by the church and by the state,” Decks says. “But we didn’t want to make a very heavy film. Tonally, we wanted people to engage with the characters and go on a journey with them.”

O’Byrne also highlights a key social takeaway. “The film said to me that unless we talk about stuff, we can’t get over things,” he says. No one can bury stuff. We fool ourselves if we bury ourselves and isolate. And in the end, Gerry gets to make a connection.”

A connection with whom, you ask? Well, you have to see One Sweet Hour and go on that journey through central Ireland with Gerry and Colum to find out.