LEAVING CERT ENGLISH - HONOURS
INSIDE I'M DANCING (FILM)
INSIDE I’M DANCING
Michael Connelly: Cerebral Palsy. Long term resident of Carrigmore Home for the Disabled.
Rory O’Shea: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Rory is a rebel. He is aware that he has a short life expectancy.
He is physically powerless, but has great power and charisma in his strong, dominant personality.
Eileen is the manager and carer in Carrigmore. Annie is the carer assistant. Rory makes fun of these strong women and resists their power. Rory shouts and becomes aggressive when his stereo is confiscated. He is proud of his blonde, gelled hair. Annie tells him “We have no time to be teasing those spikes every day”
He gets to know Michael as the latter attempts to gel his hair.
He is amazed at the passivity of the inmates of Carrigmore, who accept the rules, the dull routine and old-fashioned music. He lies in the dark the night his stereo has been confiscated “If you’re alive, shout!”
The atmosphere is dead, old-world, typified by the dreadful “musical evening” and the song “He’s Got the Whole World In his Hands”
We see the clash of two worlds here---the old world which saw people with disability as cases to be pitied, and the new, modern world where disability will be accepted, and where people like Rory will insist on making their voices heard.
Rory longs for the normal freedom of his age “I want to be out there. Don’t you want to be like everyone else…?”
When he and Michael are sent to collect funds in town, he uses the money to meet girls in a bar, leading the well-behaved Michael astray. “This is for the NEEDS of the disabled. I’m disabled, and I NEED a drink” He almost gets into a fight when he knocks a customer’s drink. His manner to the girls they meet is boastful, controlling and macho. “He introduces his friend to Siobhain “He’s Michael. I’m trouble” They attempt to get into a night club: “Monday night is wheelchair night” the bouncer tells them.
Rory has been rejected 3 times by the Independent Living Award Panel. He dictates a letter to Eileen “You have rejected my application on the unsupported word of interfering, dried-up old bitches..” “You might want to re-phrase that” the patient Annie tells him. Eventually he hits on the idea of asking Michael to seek Independent living, with himself as an interpreter, because he is the only one who can understand Michael’s speech. His farewell to Eileen and Annie is rather cruel “If I said anything to offend you…good!”
They have borrowed the money for the flat from Michael’s father, a Senior Council, who has political connections and has rejected Michael.
There is wonderful joy and excitement in the new flat:
“No interfering old bitches. Just you and me in cripple Heaven. Freedom!”
The beautiful Siobhan becomes their carer. But there are problems and lessons to be learned: they run up a huge bill in the supermarket, unaware of the price of things. Siobhan dashes between rooms at bedtime as she tries to deal with their conflicting demands. “We need to have some rules here”, Siobhan tells them. Rory rejects all rules. That is why he left Carrigmore. “It’s not your job to make rules. Your job is to do exactly as we tell you. You do the cleaning, make the tea. You’re our servant”
Rory is involved in a joy-riding incident, and is disappointed when the Gardai won’t arrest him. He wants to be like everyone else. “That’s discrimination!”
Things come to a head at the fancy dress party when Michael, dancing in his wheelchair with Siobhan. refuses to release her. He has fallen in love with her. She has her own boyfriend, and tries to resist his clumsy advances. Siobhan decides to give up her job, but before she leaves, she tells Rory some home truths:
“If you want to be equal you have to show people the same respect you demand off them. In the real world, if a woman says no to you, you accept that maybe you’re not the right man for her. Don’t assume you have an automatic right to love because you’re in a wheelchair”
Michael is terribly upset by the loss of Siobhan. He goes out one wet night down to the Liffey bridges, contemplating suicide, or going back to Carrigmore. Rory tells him “I know it hurts. You’re not the only one with the broken heart. But you have the future, Michael. That’s what I call a gift…don’t give it up”
Rory becomes ill and is taken to hospital. He has always known that his time was not long. That is why he lives every moment to the full. Siobhan and Michael go back one last time to the Independent Living panel to plead Rory’s case. Michael tells them that Rory’s life was the very embodiment of independent living, and that “a right must exist independent of its exercise”. But it s too late for Rory. It is not too late for Michael. With his dying breath Rory tells him “You’re your own man”
Michel hears Rory’s ghostly voice in the now-empty flat: “Well, then, are we going out?” The importance of “going out”, stepping outside the boundaries, freedom and escape into a larger world, were Rory’s great gifts to Michael.
In the last shot we see Michael in his wheelchair moving independently through the city crowds.