Directed by: Colm Quinn
Starring: Paul Kelly, Michael Flynn
Release Date: 7th October 2016
Runtime: 81 minutes
AS far as mattress documentaries go, Mattress Men makes for uncomfortable sitting. The film follows the “lord of mattresses” Michael Flynn and amateur filmmaker Paul Kelly as they attempt to drag the Mattress Mick business out from the ashes of a recession.
Though advertised as a heart-warming tale of two men persevering through austerity, what filmmaker Colm Quinn shows us is one broken man being exploited by another. Despite the big smiles on the poster, the man behind the mattress becomes increasingly egotistical while the man running after him sees his life fall apart in the space of three years. A far cry from the bizarre whimsy of the Mattress Mick YouTube channel.
The two friends and business partners are constantly competing for ownership of the brand. Despite being the creative force behind the persona, Paul ends up playing second fiddle to Flynn’s quest for mattress domination. The dismal shot of Paul sitting at his desk staring at a post-it which reads, “I will buy a four bedroom house in Santry in 2015,” is as unforgettable as it is grim. These sparse moments of gut-wrenching despair make it unclear whether the film has a heart at all.
Mattress Men is effectively a character study of the modern Irish man, showing how he must reconfigure himself under the pressures of austerity, but in execution it remains shallow. Unnecessarily long shots of Flynn pretending to find his alter ego funny present clear issues with the film’s pacing.
While Paul’s plight may tug at heartstrings, the film portrays little of Mattress Mick besides his desire to sell. Quinn and company would have benefited from tighter editing, as well as clearer presentation of their film’s subjects.
All the while there is a third man, the one inside the mattress. Tense scenes between Flynn and Paul are broken up by shots of another employee, Brian Traynor, as he wanders the streets of Dublin in a shabby mattress suit. Waking up every day excited by the prospects of going on his “walkies”, his role in the film is part comic relief, part reminder that this is all just a bit sad. But this is how Quinn leaves us, hanging on the laboured breath of a walking mattress.
In A Nutshell: An unsympathetic, poorly put together documentary that not only fails to capture the warmth of its subject matter – it absolutely drowns it.
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