Canadian Film Review: Fido (2006)

* * *
Director: Andrew Currie
Starring: Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, K'Sun Ray, Dylan Baker, Henry Czerny

The key to Fido’s success is that it plays things straight. It believes fully in the world it has created, one in which domesticated zombies perform household tasks and a person's greatest ambition is to save enough money to get a double funeral upon death - one for your head, the other for your body (to avoid becoming a zombie, natch). With a sharp wit and delightful performances from Billy Connolly and Carrie-Anne Moss, Fido makes for an immensely enjoyable film.

Fido seems to take place in the 1950s, though it’s difficult to say exactly since it takes place in an alternate reality where zombies are commonplace. Years earlier, a mock educational video explains, radiation from space caused the dead to rise as zombies, creating chaos across the globe. The solution was to build large fences around towns, effectively turning them into city states with large no-go zones in between where zombies still roam free. In the town of Willard, zombies have been turned into servants thanks to special collars created by scientists at Zomcon, which render the creatures harmless. If the collar is turned off, however, the zombie becomes “wild” again, likely making the person who was once its master into its next victim.

Zombies are of great interest to young Timmy Robinson (K’Sun Ray), a social misfit who wonders whether the dead who didn’t rise are still in their graves, struggling to get out. His questions are dismissed and ignored at school when Zomcon’s security chief (Henry Czerny) comes to speak to the class, further alienating him. Things aren’t much better at home, where he tosses a baseball to himself in the front yard and is admonished by his mother (Moss), who tells him not to play by himself because then neighbours will think that he’s lonely. When she brings home a zombie (Connolly) so that the family will cease to be the only one on the block without one, it becomes Timmy’s companion, whom he names Fido. Fido becomes an increasingly important part of Timmy’s life as well as that of his mother, making for a very odd love triangle that leaves Mr. Robinson (Dylan Baker) increasingly marginalized.

The world of Fido is one preoccupied with death not as a danger, but as a business. In the film, the only thing that prevents a corpse from becoming a zombie is to separate the head from the body and bury them separately. To afford such a burial means scrimping and saving for a lifetime; Mr. Robinson’s proudest achievement is that he’s put away enough money to ensure that he, his wife and their son will all be able to be buried rather than become zombies and when he learns that his wife is pregnant, he looks at her plaintively and declares that he just doesn’t think he can afford another funeral on his salary (and he says this while reading a magazine called “Death,” which is my favourite sight gag from the film). Why should funerals be so expensive if the alternative is more zombies and their inherent dangers? The collar eliminates that danger and turns the zombies into a massive source of free labour. Since the zombies are no longer “people” in a technical sense, they can be used, abused, and discarded without penalty. This is as much a film about corporate greed and corruption as a comedy about zombie movie conventions.

The film has a lot of fun playing 1950s style wholesomeness against an ironic humour. “Now I know you’re not supposed to have a handgun until you’re twelve,” Mr. Robinson tells his son, “but it can come in real handy.” Of course, since the school’s curriculum includes time at the shooting range, it’s not as if Timmy will encounter any zero tolerance policies. The actors play these scenes with a degree of sincerity that helps keep the premise afloat - this wouldn’t work if you felt like the characters knew, on some level, that the story is silly. Of the actors Moss has to do the most heavy lifting and does it with ease, breezing through the film’s most defined character arc and becoming a thoroughly rootable heroine. Her relationship with Fido becomes increasingly complex (and bizarre), but she and Connolly - who makes Fido a surprisingly lively zombie - manage to pull it off and make for a rather charming couple, for lack of a better word. The whole movie, in fact, is charming (despite a bit of gore) and definitely one of the better zombie comedies to come out in the last few years.

Canadian Film Review: When Night Is Falling (1995)

Director: Patricia Rozema
Starring: Pascale Bussieres, Rachael Crawford, Henry Czerny, David Fox

This is a film that I really like even though I know that objectively, it falls just short of being good. It’s well-acted and gracefully directed, but the content just doesn’t quite measure up, resulting in the good stuff being dragged down by the bad stuff. However, there’s enough good stuff that I never notice the bad while I’m watching, and only tend to think about it afterwards.

The film centers on Camille (Bussieres), a professor of mythology at a Christian university. She's engaged to Martin (Czerney), and one day meets Petra (Crawford) in a laundromat. Later, she discovers that their clothes have been switched (not accidentally, as we know, though Camille does not), and soon Petra is pursuing Camille, who pushes her away with one hand while pulling her closer with the other.

One of the things I like about the film is that it actively engages with religious ideas. Camille’s conflict isn’t “am I gay or am I straight?” as it is in a lot of similar films; her conflict is in trying to find a balance between what she feels for Petra, and the religious ideals that she’s always held. This aspect of the story rests heavily on the scenes between Camille and Reverend DeBoer (Fox), a character I always find myself wishing that we got to see just a little bit more of. He’s not your typical depiction of Christian authority. He disapproves of Camille’s relationship with Petra, but he doesn’t denounce her for it. There’s some slight suggestion that Reverend DeBoer himself might be gay. “People like you” is a phrase that is said twice in the film. The first time is at the beginning of the film, when Camille asks Petra if “people like [her] have friends.” The second time is towards the end, when Revered DeBoer tells Camille that maybe the Church has been unfair to “people like [her].” Is he just more liberal than his post would suggest, or is he so gentle and understanding with her because he really does understand where she’s coming from with regards to her feelings and her religion?

Aside from religious issues, there are also issues of race. Petra is black, Camille is white. This fact never arises between them, nor is it commented on by other characters in the film. On the one hand, this is good because the interracial aspect of their relationship shouldn’t be a big deal. However, subtextually there is some commentary on this aspect of their relationship which is troubling. Petra is a circus performer, a fact which has negative connotations all around. The chemistry between the two actress – and, for that matter, between their characters – is strong enough that it’s unnecessary to exoticize Petra in this way. Also troubling is a scene where DeBoer finds Petra and Camille together and Camille describes Petra as “a street kid.” Petra is no more a kid than Camille, and certainly doesn’t look like a street person. There are any number of ways that Camille could have explained Petra’s presence in her apartment, and the fact that her mind went straight to “street kid” is telling about how deeply she feels that this relationship is taboo.

The chemistry between the two actresses is very good, and so is the development of their two characters. In the beginning, Camille is tentative and guarded, and then begins to let go and open up. Petra when she’s in pursuit of Camille is quite aggressive (not in a bad way, just in a way that her intentions are quite clear), but becomes more guarded as the relationship progresses, afraid that she’s allowed herself to feel too much for Camille when there’s a chance that Camille might stay with Martin. The ways in which they dance towards and away from each other ring very true, though the film lets us know fairly early that there will be a happy ending for Camille and Petra. Consider the two sex scenes, one between Camille and Martin, the other between Camille and Petra. The scene with Martin takes place in the dark, and the sex is energetic but emotionless, and we know that Camille is thinking of Petra. The scene with Petra takes place in the light, is softer and slower, and intercut with shots of two gymnasts performing a high-wire act (as an aside I must admit that seeing the film again recently I was distracted during this scene by the realization that Rachael Crawford must have had a “no nipples” clause in her contract, given the lengths the film goes to not to show them). Camille’s connection to Petra runs far deeper and we know, even if Petra doesn’t, that Camille will choose her.

There are a lot of things about this movie that I feel I can defend, but there’s one thing that occurs at the end that always takes me right out of the movie. Camille’s dog dies at the beginning of the story. At the end, after she’s buried him in the woods, he crawls out of his grave and takes off running. The film begins with Camille giving a lecture on the mythological trope of humans transforming into animals and vice versa. It ends with Camille running away with Petra (and the circus), and the dog running away to… wherever. You could argue that this scene is symbolic of Camille breaking free, that the dead dog coming back to life is symbolic of Camille’s soul or something, but even as symbolism, the scene seems misplaced.

That being said, this is a film that is very watchable from start to finish, and one that stands up against multiple viewings despite it’s problems.