Screenings in British Film Festival

FRIDAY

‘THE BEST MAN’ Goodson, 6:30 pm.

The disjointed lives of Irish men and women--made even more distant by the institution of the pub and by benign acceptance of alcoholism as virtually a national trait--are bitingly drawn in this Northern Irish comedy-drama about a married couple and their best friend, a pair and a spare. Although the crummy sound recording makes this one of the festival’s more ragged offerings, if you forgive that, you may savor writer-director Joe Mahon’s acute ear and his dead-on portrait of the blustering bar culture--hardly different from an American singles bar except that in Ireland the language is gorgeous. Still thuddingly empty, but gorgeous.