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Sometimes after I fix lunch, I sit down in front of the TV and channel surf. I got lucky the other day and caught one of my all-time favorite movies: Waking Ned Devine.
In a little Irish coastal village, a man discovers that one of the villagers has won the weekly lottery. He and his pal set out to discover who it is. In the process, they happen upon old Ned Devine, unmoving in front of the TV that announced the winning number, the lucky ticket still between his dead fingers. He won, then died of shock.
The rest of the film involves the attempt to bamboozle the lottery folks by passing off one of the villagers as Ned, with hilarious and heart-warming results. The players are wonderful, no one you’ve ever heard of before. The little side plots are fun too: the gal who loves the pig farmer but won’t wed him because he smells like his pigs; the issue of who fathered her little boy; what to do about the village witch who won’t cooperate.
My favorite scene is when the lottery guy, looking to confirm that the guy who says he’s Ned Devine really is, walks into the church in the middle of Ned Devine’s funeral.
A delightful movie.