In the emerald embrace of Ireland’s wild southwest, where the Atlantic crashes against cliffs like an old lover’s grudge and the roads twist like forgotten secrets, a quiet miracle is unfolding on Netflix screens. Joyride, the 2022 comedy-drama that slipped through the cracks of theatrical release like a stolen taxi in the night, has suddenly surged to the top of the streamer’s charts in the UK, Ireland, and beyond. What began as a modest €5 million production—filmed on a shoestring amid the misty moors of County Kerry—has ballooned into a viral sensation, racking up millions of hours watched since its quiet August 2024 addition to the platform. Viewers, lured by the promise of Olivia Colman’s irrepressible charm, are emerging misty-eyed and mesmerized: “Thought it was a silly comedy… I’m sobbing,” one X user confessed, while another hailed it as “an absolute joy of a film—tender, funny, warm.” Critics once dismissed it as a “rickety road trip” that sputtered to its end, but audiences are rewriting the narrative, dubbing it the “feel-good heartbreak you never knew you needed.” In a summer clogged with blockbusters and bloat, Joyride reminds us that sometimes, the smallest stories carry the biggest punches—proving it’s never too late for a second chance, on screen or off.

The film’s improbable odyssey mirrors its own plot: a tale of unlikely allies barreling toward redemption on fumes and folklore. At its core is Mully (Charlie Reid), a fiercely independent 12-year-old from a rain-lashed Kerry village, orphaned by his mother Rita’s battle with cancer and saddled with a deadbeat dad, James (Lochlann Ó Mearáin), whose idea of parenting peaks at pinching charity cash from the local pub. One stormy evening in a boisterous Tralee bar—where fiddles wail and pints foam like the sea—Mully spots his father swiping the hospice donation jar raised in Rita’s memory. With the moral compass of a kid twice his age, Mully snatches the envelope stuffed with €2,000 and bolts into the night, commandeering a waiting taxi like a mini-heist artist. But as he guns the engine toward freedom, a snort from the backseat shatters the silence: enter Joy (Olivia Colman), a disheveled solicitor three weeks postpartum, cradling her newborn daughter Robin like an unwelcome parcel. Three sheets to the wind on Baileys and regret, Joy was en route to Dingle to hand the baby off to her best friend Mags (Aisling O’Sullivan) before fleeing to the Canary Islands for a solo escape. “I’m not cut out for this,” she slurs, her crisp barrister’s suit rumpled, her life unraveling faster than a poorly tied fisherman’s knot.

What ensues is a chaotic, cathartic joyride across Ireland’s rugged Ring of Kerry: hairpin turns hugging sheer drops, sheep-dotted fields blurring into pagan festivals, and ferry rides where the horizon mocks their turmoil. Mully, barely tall enough to see over the wheel, becomes the improbable chauffeur, his street-smart bravado masking a grief as raw as an open wound. Joy, a buttoned-up lawyer haunted by her own mother’s icy rejection—”She looked at me like I’d ruined her life”—clutches Robin with the enthusiasm of a tax audit, her maternal instincts buried under layers of denial and Dublin polish. Their alliance is born of necessity: Mully needs distance from James’s looming threats, Joy from the suffocating weight of new motherhood. But as the miles unspool, so do their defenses. They bicker over radio stations (Mully blasts The Pogues; Joy pleads for Classic FM), share fish and chips on windswept beaches at Ardfert, and dodge Gardaí checkpoints with the finesse of a leprechaun’s prank. A pivotal pit stop at a hospice fundraiser forces Joy to confront her ghosts, while Mully’s rendition of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher”—scat-singing with a Kerry lilt—unleashes peals of laughter that echo like thunder over the waves.

Director Emer Reynolds, making her narrative feature debut after Emmy-winning docs like the space odyssey The Farthest, crafts a film that’s as visually lush as its emotional terrain is thorny. Shot entirely on location in Kerry’s untamed splendor—from the jagged Skellig-inspired coastlines to the fog-veiled bogs of the Dingle Peninsula—Joyride transforms Ireland into a fourth character, its moody skies and golden-hour glows mirroring the duo’s inner tempests. Cinematographer James Mather, fresh from The Dig, employs a handheld intimacy that sways with the taxi’s lurches, capturing Colman’s tear-streaked close-ups with the tenderness of a whispered confession. The score, a lilting blend of Ray Harman’s original folk-infused strings and era-spanning needle drops—”The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy blaring during a euphoric escape, Colman’s off-key rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” lulling Robin to sleep—propels the absurdity without undercutting the ache. Screenwriter Ailbhe Keogan, of Bad Sisters fame, laces the script with Irish blarney: wry one-liners about “eejits” and “feckin’ eejits,” but never shying from the script’s contrivances—a stolen car chase that strains credulity, a serendipitous encounter with a traveling circus that veers into whimsy.

Yet for all its plot potholes—critics carped about the “schematic” structure and “fairytale” finale—Joyride thrives on heart, and Colman is its unyielding engine. At 50, the Oscar winner (for The Favourite) channels a vulnerability that’s equal parts feral and fragile, her Joy a whirlwind of contradictions: a woman who litigates with laser precision yet fumbles a diaper change like a live grenade. Colman’s Irish accent—honed through weeks in Kerry, blending Dublin bite with rural burr—wobbles occasionally but grounds her in authenticity, her eyes (those luminous, world-weary pools) betraying the terror beneath the bravado. “I’m not a mum—I’m a post-partum psychosis waiting to happen,” she quips in one gut-punch scene, but it’s her quiet unraveling—staring at Robin’s tiny fist, echoing her own mother’s disdain—that shatters. Colman, a mother of three who once joked about “hating babies” in interviews, draws from the marrow: her physical comedy (sprawling across the taxi’s backseat, mid-meltdown) recalls Chaplin’s Tramp, while her emotional arcs evoke The Lost Daughter‘s maternal maelstrom. “Olivia makes the impossible believable,” Reynolds said during production, praising her co-star’s ability to “hold the chaos and the calm.” It’s a performance that’s career-best intimate, proving why she’s the queen of “ugly cries”—raw, relatable, redemptive.

Opposite her, newcomer Charlie Reid—selected from 1,500 auditions as the pint-sized Mully—emerges as a revelation, his cherubic face etched with precocious pain. At 16 during filming (though playing 12), the Dublin lad brings a lived-in grit: Mully’s not a precocious sidekick but a survivor, quoting his late mum’s wisdom (“Life’s not fair, but it’s worth it”) while hot-wiring cars with the nonchalance of a bike thief. Reid’s chemistry with Colman crackles—think The Florida Project meets About Schmidt—their banter a lifeline amid the lunacy. “He’s got that old soul,” Colman gushed in a post-premiere chat, crediting Reid for pulling her through the film’s heavier lifts, like a raw hospice confrontation where Mully teaches Joy to breastfeed, a scene of awkward, aching tenderness that sidesteps sentiment for stark humanity.

The supporting cast adds flavorful filigree: Ó Mearáin chews scenery as the boozy, bellowing James, a toxic paterfamilias whose redemption arc feels earned amid the farce. O’Sullivan’s Mags is a beacon of bewildered warmth, while cameos from Tommy Tiernan (as a wry Garda) and Olwen Fouéré (a spectral circus mystic) inject Kerry’s eccentric pulse. Production was a family affair: Reynolds, a Kerry native, scouted locations with locals, weaving in authentic touches like a real pagan solstice gathering at Bealtaine. Budget constraints bred creativity—practical effects for car chases, natural light for moody interiors—but also grit: a torrential downpour flooded sets, turning a scripted drizzle into a deluge that Colman later called “baptism by Irish rain.” Released theatrically in July 2022 via Vertigo Films, Joyride premiered to polite applause at Galway Film Fleadh but fizzled at the box office, grossing under $100,000 worldwide amid summer slogs like Minions: The Rise of Gru. Critics were middling—Rotten Tomatoes at 51% (“a pleasant journey, if bumpy”), Metacritic at 48 (“mixed bag”)—praising performances but panning the “contrived caper” and “blarney overload.” Roger Ebert’s Monica Castillo noted its “unwieldy charm,” while Variety lauded the “deft duo” but lamented tonal whiplash.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Netflix’s algorithm has worked its alchemy. Added to UK/Ireland libraries in early August alongside Colman’s Wicked Little Letters, Joyride catapulted to No. 1 in days, outpacing The Union and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. By mid-August, it held the top spot for a week, with global streams pushing 20 million hours. Why now? Timing, for one: post-Olympics ennui craves cozy catharsis, and Colman’s “Colmania”—fueled by The Bear buzz and Wicked‘s word-of-mouth—drew clicks. But it’s the grassroots glow-up: X threads explode with #JoyrideNetflix, fans sharing sobs over the finale’s quiet epiphany (no spoilers: think rainbow over the Ring, but earned). “Charlie Reid is a star—tender and tough,” one tweet raves; another: “Olivia’s Joy is me after one too many wines.” TikTok edits sync Colman’s meltdowns to Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” amassing 5 million views. Even skeptics convert: “Expected fluff, got feels,” a reviewer admitted. In Ireland, it’s cultural catnip—Kerry tourism boards report a 15% spike in “Joyride trails,” with Dingle pubs offering “Mully’s pint” specials.

Joyride arrives not as redemption porn but a rumination on rupture: motherhood’s messy myth, grief’s greedy grasp, the grace in grand theft auto. It’s flawed—plot holes gape like Kerry potholes, whimsy occasionally wobbles into weird—but its soul sings. Reynolds, now eyeing a follow-up doc on Irish folklore, calls it “a love letter to Kerry’s chaos.” Colman, promoting Kind Hearts, reflected: “Joy taught me it’s okay to be a hot mess—life’s the real joyride.” For viewers adrift in 2025’s tempests—economic squeezes, endless scrolls—it’s balm: proof that bonds bloom in breakdowns, and home isn’t a place but a passenger. Stream it on Netflix, grab tissues (and a Guinness), and let Ireland’s wild heart heal yours. At 94 minutes, it’s a detour worth every detour. Who knew a forgotten flick could feel like fate?