There’s a line in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird that goes “You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family”. And if you’re in one of those families where friction is a regular occurrence, then you know just how true that statement is.

This independent Irish film follows the dynamic of new family members coming together and the resulting impact caused by it.

Lying in what he believes to be his death bed is Fergus (Des Keogh). He tells his son Ciáran (Colm Meaney) about the rift in their family, which he’s vaguely aware of, about his great-great-grandfather and his brother being separated, with one going off to start a new life in America.

Fergus announces that his final wish is for the family to be united, and that he wants his son to make peace with the family now settled in the US. True to his word, Ciáran manages to track down his cousin, who’s a developer in NYC, and phones him up. He tells Barry (Paul Reiser) of his father’s dying wish, and Barry agrees to come.

All starts off well with the family reunion; with Ciáran and Barry doing their best to heal any past family grievances, but it doesn’t last long when the two soon start to find themselves butting heads, which goes to ridiculous lengths.

Disagreements between families is nothing new, especially in film, but director Chris Cottam’s film has a gentle, Irish flavour that makes it perfectly charming.

The premise does borrow heavily from the 1983 classic Local Hero, but at least it has the courtesy to acknowledge it in the film.

It’s a film that relies on its two central cousins played well by Meaney and Reiser, as well as an array of quirky Irish characters floating around them.

Perhaps the grudge between them could have been played on more, with the film happy enough to accept the silliness of the premise, so there was an opportunity to lean into that little harder. There’s a scene involving an electric curtain, for example, and although it illustrates the pettiness of their relationship, it’s just a little too soft and trivial to make it memorable.

The ending is flat too, with the script really struggling to come up with a decent exit strategy and chooses to jump the shark instead in a disappointingly flaky fashion.

Still, it’s fun and playful for the most part, playing up to the stereotypes of a small Irish town, and showing that family feuds certainly have their fair share of petty problems.