Prosperity

There are a million or so stories in the Big Smoke. This has been four, okay five, of them. A sobering mosaic of social neglect and marginalization in Dublin in the year before the Great Recession. Its four stories – it’s a composite film more than a miniseries – are linked chronologically, geographically, and thematically. More descriptive than didactic, _Prosperity _suggests that despite unparalleled economic expansion and social liberalization over a decade, both the Irish state and society had neglected social responsibility and community, not least the little platoons of family. More enlightening, if less entertaining, than _Adam & Paul_ or _Garage_.