Canadian Film Review: The Grand Seduction (2014)

* * *
Director: Don McKellar
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Taylor Kitsch

Films like The Grand Seduction are projects that are engineered to please. They don't take chances, they offer no innovations, but they demonstrate the simple pleasures of the familiar. You know from the beginning just how the film will end, and you know more or less completely how it will get there, so its success or failure hinges on whether it can charm you into thinking that you want to listen to a story that you've already been told. In that respect, Don McKellar's The Grand Seduction is a success even if, in the grand scheme of things, it's a minor work as likely to be remembered after the fact with some affection as it is to fade from memory completely. I'm sure it seems like I'm damning the film with faint praise, but I actually did rather enjoy it. It's a sincere story, told in relaxed fashion, and it knows how to make the most of the innate likeability of its cast and its setting.

Canadian Film Review: Cooking with Stella (2010)

* 1/2
Director: Dilip Mehta
Starring: Don McKellar, Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray

Can a movie really be considered a comedy if it leaves you feelings so bad afterwards? Cooking with Stella was marketted as a comedy and it plays out as a comedy but it gets so mean-spirited towards the end that I kind of found myself wishing I'd never watched it in the first place. It's too bad because the film actually does have some good moments but they end up being marred by the ugliness of the film's ending.

The film takes place at the Canadian High Commission in New Dehli and centers on Stella (Seema Biswas), who has been a cook for a revolving door of posted dipolmats for about 30 years. Her current diplomatic employer is Maya (Lisa Ray), who has come with her husband Michael (Don McKellar) and their infant daughter. Both Maya and Michael disrupt Stella's expectations of her relationship to her employers, Maya because she's half-Indian but doesn't identify that way - "I was born in Toronto. I'm Canadian," she tells Stella. In very measured tones Stella replies, "As you wish." - and Michael because he doesn't seem to recognize the boundaries that separate him from the staff. Like Stella, Michael is a chef by trade and he wants to learn how to make authentic Indian dishes. Stella is reluctant but ultimately agrees to teach him.

With Michael busy learning from Stella, a nanny is hired to care for the baby. Tannu (Shriya Saran) has never been employed by diplomats before, which is why she comes so cheap, and she sends her earnings to her father to pay medical expenses for her sick brother. Stella attempts to take Tannu under her wing and get her involved in the black market business she has going (which involves stealing from her employers) but Tannu refuses and threatens to expose Stella unless she stops, too. Undaunted, Stella arranges for her godson Anthony (Vansh Bhardwaj) to charm Tannu and bilk her of her earnings so that she'll have no choice but to join Stella.

Typically in a film what would then happen is that Tannu would discover the connection between Anthony and Stella, realize that she's been played, and try to set things right. Similarly, Stella would come to have a genuine affection for Michael and would come to feel bad about taking advantage of him. Neither of these things happen, which I suppose should earn the film points for defying expectations but the turn that the plot takes undercuts whatever charms it had going for it up to this point. No longer content with the small money from the black market business, Stella, Tannu and Anthony hatch a plot to fake Stella's kidnapping in order to get a ransom. Michael and Maya agree to pony up $20k for her safe return and the Canadian government agrees to hand over $40k in exchange for information leading to the capture of the kidnappers. In light of that, Stella agrees to let Tannu turn her in so that the three conspirators can split $40k instead of 20. Stella is convicted, goes to jail and then, with Michael's intervention, is released early and goes off to enjoy her ill-gotten gains with Tannu and Anthony.

Are we really supposed to see this as a happy ending? I mean, yes, on the one hand Stella and company are oppressed people striking a figurative blow against the man, but on the other hand they're literally scamming two people who have been nothing but nice to them. Michael, in particular, comes to care deeply for Stella as his mentor, so much so that he's willing to forgive the fake kidnapping to help her get out of jail. Why does he deserve to be robbed, deceived, and made a fool of? It's really disheartening and frankly kind of gross.

Anyway, whatever the faults of the film itself, none lies with the actors. Biswas and McKellar are particularly good and Ray makes the most of a role that gives her little to work with. All three deserve to be in a better movie.

Canadian Film Review: Exotica (1994)

* * * 1/2
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar

Late in Atom Egoyan's Exotica strip club owner Zoe (Arsinee Khanjian) explains to patron Francis (Bruce Greenwood) that Exotica isn't a place where people come to heal. In a film where characters seem acutely, painful self-aware, this comment stands out as almost laughably naive. Of course Exotica is where people come to heal; just look at how many walking wounded come through its doors.

Exotica is the name of a club where Christina (Mia Kirshner) works, doing the same school girl act night after night while the DJ (Elias Koteas) waxes poetic about her "special innocence." One of the patrons captivated by that innocence is Francis, who has a connection to Christina outside the little world of Exotica, and waits for her every night so that he can have a private dance. Seeing her is a compulsion for him, a necessity; something he seems to need rather than enjoy. As we learn later, seeing him is also a necessity for her, something which has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a shared pain from the past.

This story eventually intersects with that of Thomas (Don McKellar), a pet store owner involved in a lucrative smuggling opperation. Francis is the CRA agent assigned to audit Thomas' records and, after things go very wrong one night at Exotica, he blackmails Thomas into a "you help me, I help you" scheme. Things don't work out exactly as planned, but that's part of what makes Exotica such a strong movie.

The thing that makes Exotica so compelling is that so much of it is predicated on illusion both in terms of the story's content - the performance aspect of Christina's job is an obvious illusion, as is the idea that a patron can have a private dance in a place where someone is always watching the people who are watching - and the way that the story is told. Egoyan sets things up so that we think one thing and then he slowly folds the narrative back to reveal that it's actually something else. For example, an early transition finds us going from watching Francis at Exotica to sitting in a car with a very young Sarah Polley, giving her money and asking if she'll be available again soon. The scene is set up to have very sinister connotations but we later learn that she's his niece and that he pays her to come to his house and pretend to babysit while he's at Exotica. His motivations for doing this are revealed later still.

For the most part the connections between the characters are revealed early - we know how Christina and the DJ first met, how Christina knows Francis, and the tragedy that drives Francis back to Exotica night after night - but that works because unlike a lot of films that involve multiple characters and stories that ultimately converge, the point of this one isn't to reveal how they're all connected. Instead the connections are used to expand our understanding of the characters as individuals and as the film progresses those relationships keep gaining depth. Between its excellent screenplay and a cast that's great across the board (Greenwood, in particular, makes an impression), the film is resonant and endlessly fascinating - one viewing really isn't enough to fully appreciate what it is able to accomplish. The only real criticism that I have is that it feels a bit dated, much more so than many other films to come out the same year. Still, it remains an excellent film and is certainly one of Egoyan's best.

Canadian Film Review: Childstar (2004)

* * *
Director: Don McKellar
Starring: Don McKellar, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mark Rendall

It's a familiar story. Cute kid becomes big star, enjoys fame, fortune and having people attend to his every whim, lets it go to his head and acts like a bit of a terror. You'd hate him if you didn't know the typical second act of a story like his, where the kid peaks at adolescence and spends the rest of his or her life on the decline, often falls into drug addiction and trouble with the law and becomes such complete tabloid fodder that most people forget why they were famous in the first place. Though it touches on that tragic second act through a supporting character, Childstar is more interested in exploring the tense period of transition between the two acts and while it ends up being a bit lightweight, there's still much to recommend in it.

Don McKellar stars as Rick, a former university professor who has given up his job in order to follow his dream of making movies and finds himself forced to make ends meet by working as a limo driver. One of his clients is Taylor Brandon Burns (Mark Rendall), a 12-year-old superstar of film and television with a healthy ego and a ruthless stage mother, Suzanne (Jennifer Jason Leigh in a great performance). Rick quickly rises through the ranks, first being promoted from simply being the driver to pick Taylor up from the airport to become his permanent driver, and then becoming Taylor's onset tutor after he terrorizes all of the official onset teachers, and then becoming Taylor's legal guardian so that he can work even if his mother is off set. His unimpressed, no nonsense manner is what sets him on the fast track – well, that and the fact that he’s sleeping with Suzanne.

The thing that really sets Rick apart from the other people on the set is that he sees things the way that a normal person would, separate and apart from the bottom line of movie making. He notices, for example, the toll that making the movie has on Taylor, both mentally and physically, and when Taylor runs away to escape the pressure, he’s just about the only person to be concerned for Taylor’s safety rather than for the fate of the film in the event that something has happened to its star. Taylor is at a crucial moment in his career: his brand is at the height of profitability and those who want to make a mint off it need to do it fast because he’s about the enter that difficult stage when children start to become adults, a stage when child actors often find themselves starting to fade into obscurity.

Directed by McKellar, the film finds just the right tone. It acknowledges the more glamorous aspects of stardom – big houses, money to burn, people willing to see to your every whim – but also examines how damaging these things can be both to the person not yet mature enough to handle them and to the people who ought to know better, but allow themselves to become corrupted by it. Suzanne is the most corrupt figure in the film, so enamoured with what Taylor's success can get her that she seems blinded to Taylor as a human being. She's more than happy to take responsibility for spending the money that Taylor brings in, but she has no interest in taking responsibility for caring for Taylor in any constructive way. She's an ugly character, the definite villain of the piece, but Leigh manages to keep her from being a two-dimensional monster of a stage mother. It's to the film's credit that it doesn't go the easy route to redemption with her but allows her to keep her sharp edges to the end, trusting that Leigh can make her seem human despite all evidence to the contrary.

In the lead McKellar does a fine job and it's funny to watch Rick interacting with the movie industry characters because he is so consistently unimpressed with them and they in turn are baffled by him because they're so used to people treating them as if they're impressive. What Rick ultimately reveals is that the others have bark but don't actually have any bite to back it up - except, possibly, Taylor, who manages to give Rick a bit of a run for his money. As Taylor, Rendall accomplishes more than you might initially expect of him, capturing the brattiness that someone of his age and level of fame would likely have, but also the loneliness of his position. He's too young to really relate to adults but he's also far too experienced to have much in common with anyone his own age. He's isolated by fame and will never really be a "normal" person; even if his star fades, people will still recognize him as Taylor Brandon Burns and expect him to spout his famous catch phrases and generally be their clown. As unlikeable as the character often is, it's easy to feel sorry for him because he's at a point in his life and career where things could easily turn disastrous.

Childstar doesn't quite reach the heights of Last Night, McKellar's previous directorial feature, but it's a film that is still well worth a look. The script (by McKellar and Michael Goldbach) is smart, dark and funny and aside from the three performances already discussed, there's also a funny supporting performance from my favourite Kid in the Hall, Dave Foley. There's also a vaguely creepy cameo by Alan Thicke but... I'll leave you to discover that for yourself.

Canadian Film Review: Highway 61 (1991)

* * *
Director: Bruce McDonald
Starring: Don McKellar, Valerie Buhagiar, Earl Pastko

Take a corpse, a road trip, and the devil, mix in some missing drugs and an opposites attract romance, and you’ll get Bruce McDonald’s Highway 61. A dark comedy full of oddball characters and strange scenes, this is a film that can’t really be compared to any other because it goes so far off the beaten track and is totally doing it’s own thing.

The film begins in a small town near Thunder Bay with naïve and somewhat sheltered barber Pokey Jones (Don McKellar) finding a frozen body in his backyard. Jackie Bangs (Valerie Buhagiar) comes to claim the body, stating that he’s her brother. In reality she wants to use the body to smuggle drugs into the US and she talks Pokey into driving her and the body down Highway 61 to New Orleans. Pokey is excited by the prospect, having never been anywhere or done anything. He’s also intrigued by Jackie, who works as a roadie, and tells her about his own aspirations to be a jazz musician.

During the course of their journey they have several small adventures, the strangest of which involves a visit to some friends of Jackie’s that degenerates into a shooting spree. The how and why of that I’ll leave for you to discover for yourself. Running a close second in terms of strange encounters is their meetings with the Watson family, a father and three daughters who tour around the south in a motor home. Abandoned by Mrs. Watson, Mr. Watson is determined to make his daughters stars – a loosing battle if ever there was one. This encounter also ends with shooting, which would suggest that the problem isn’t other people as much as it is Pokey and Jackie.

Running parallel to their journey is that of Mr. Skin (Earl Pastko), who may or may not be Satan. He’s on their trail because he has a claim of his own on the corpse, namely that the man had sold him his soul before dying. He collects more souls (or, rather, the promise of souls) on the way to New Orleans and his return to his hometown culminates in a bizarre, but entirely fitting, climax.

This is an odd film, but not odd in a “look at me I’m so alternative” kind of way. Rather it is odd in a way that seems natural and without pretence. It is conventional to a point, at least in terms of road movie customs, but it turns everything on its head with its dark, satirical sensibilities. At one point Mr. Skin encounters one of the Watson girls, who informs him of her father’s promise that her mother is coming back, that she and her sisters will be stars, and that she’ll grow up to be beautiful and marry someone famous. “I’m not sure who, exactly.” Mr. Skin replies by stating: “You’re going to be an ugly lady. You’ll probably be fat and work as a cashier and no one is going to want to marry you. You see, parents aren’t allowed to tell the truth about certain things.” He then tells her that if she really wants to become famous, all she has to do is sign her name on a piece of paper he’ll give her. She’s not the first person to sign her soul away for a chance at stardom and she certainly won't be the last.

As far as the acting goes, McKellar and Buhagiar are well cast, playing characters who are strange in their own ways but also more sane and grounded than all the others in the film. McKellar plays Pokey as book smart but woefully lacking in street smarts, so vulnerable to Jackie’s charms that you still want to protect him from her even after you’ve realized that beneath her hard exterior, there’s a softie with a good heart. The show is stolen of course by Pastko in a supremely creepy, and yet also kind of funny, performance. Whether he actually is Satan or just a guy with a bunch of names signed on pieces of paper is always in question and the revelation at the end is ultimately very satisfying. Though this isn’t the kind of movie that will appeal to everyone, it is nevertheless very good and a solid piece of entertainment.

Canadian Film Review: Monkey Warfare (2007)

* *
Director: Reginald Harkema
Starring: Don McKellar, Tracy Wright, Nadia Litz

It’s generally a bad sign when you’re watching a movie and you look at the clock and think to yourself, “Huh... they’re going to run out of time before something can happen.” Monkey Warfare is a well-acted and occasionally clever film with just one problem – a movie about anti-Capitalist revolutionaries really shouldn’t be so boring.

The story centers on Dan (Don McKellar) and Linda (Tracy Wright), two former revolutionaries who are currently living off the grid, getting by collecting other people’s junk and selling it. After his weed dealer goes missing, Dan meets Susan (Nadia Litz), who hooks him up and with whom he hopes to hook up. Susan insinuates herself into Dan and Linda’s life, borrows some of Dan’s anti-establishment literature, gets him to steal a couple of bikes for her (she has a habit of wrecking them), and then springs a surprise on him: she wants Dan and Linda to join Spokes, a revolutionary group that rides bikes and destroys SUVs. For two people like Dan and Linda, who want nothing more than to lay low, this is the worst possible thing that could have come into their lives.

The style of the film is very postmodern – certain sections resemble an artsy music video more than a film – and the characters of Dan and Linda are very finely developed and wonderfully brought to life by the actors - the fact that I’m giving the film two stars instead of one is due to the performances by McKellar and Wright. Dan and Linda are living in a kind of suspended animation, hiding out due to an incident in their past and living day to day in their insulated little world (when Dan lets Susan into their place, it’s a really big deal). When asked if she and Dan are a couple, Linda states that they just live together, then corrects herself to say that they “exist” together, which does seem like a more accurate way to describe it. Dan and Linda just sort of plod through life and McKellar and Wright deliver performances of the solid, under the radar variety that are really effective and engaging.

Most of the film consists of people just hanging out, which would be fine were it not for the fact that there’s an undercurrent to the scenes which makes it seem as if it’s building up to something and then when the story finally gets there, it just kind of fizzles out. If the revelation about Susan had taken place earlier in the film, or if there had been more to the story afterwards, it would have been better because there would have been more time to explore revolutionary activities/ideals as they relate to the generation gap, which is something that is touched upon briefly right before the film ends.

Monkey Warfare should certainly be given points for originality – it’s definitely unlike any other movie I’ve ever seen – and it has moments of brilliance, but it ultimately failed to hold my attention. When a movie’s runtime is under an hour and a half, there shouldn’t be enough time for your mind to drift, but that’s exactly what happened to me. No doubt there are people who have seen or will see this and think it’s fantastic, but I’m not one of them.

Canadian Film Review: Last Night (1998)

Director: Don McKellar
Starring: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, Callum Keith Rennie

How do you know this is a Canadian film? Well, for one thing, there aren’t any characters running around, trying to defeat the insurmountable threat. For another, look at the scene where Sandra (Oh) goes to the supermarket to pick a bottle of wine. The store is a mess, having already been looted and ransacked but she finds two bottles. She considers both then, deciding on one, puts the other back on the shelf.

Most apocalypse movies are about the threat (the asteroid in Armageddon is far and away more interesting that any of the film’s characters), but this is about how people cope with the knowledge that the threat is imminent and can’t be stopped. The film doesn’t explain to us why the world is going to end – the narrative starts after everyone in the film already knows about it, has panicked over it, and has ultimately begun to make peace with the knowledge. This isn’t a film that explores what the end of the world will be like as much as it explores the things we value as human beings, the traditions and experiences that we wish to hold on to even when we know it’s pointless. A woman makes Christmas dinner for her family, even though it isn’t Christmas, because they’ll never experience it again. A DJ counts down his top 500 songs of all time (“Don’t bother calling in. This time it’s my choice”). A woman runs through the streets, keeping time for anyone who will listen. Craig (Rennie) is going to have as much sex as he can with as many people as he can. Sandra wants to be in love. And Patrick (McKellar) seems to wander from one person’s last night to another.

This is a film full of small, poignant moments. Sandra and Patrick, whom circumstances have essentially stuck together, try to know each other and make whatever relationship they can create matter for whatever time is left. Sandra has spent the day trying to get across town to be with her husband, but as it becomes increasingly apparent that she won’t make it on time, she begins to focus her attention on Patrick. She cautions him to hurry up and make her fall in love with him. To face the end without someone you love, and who loves you, seems tragic. They make the best of it and, when the end does come, they face it kissing each other.

The scenes of the Christmas dinner are the ones that have always stuck with me. Patrick and his sister (Polley) are given as presents the toys they cherished most as children. Later, one character begins to lament on behalf of the children of the world, who are going to miss out on so much. Another replies that she shouldn’t feel bad for the children – they don’t know what they’re missing. It’s the older people, those who know all that is about to be lost and swept away, for whom she should feel sorry.

The film finds a nice balance between drama and comedy, with most of the comedy surrounding the character Craig. Patrick goes to Craig to borrow one of his cars so that Sandra can get across town. Craig refuses because his cars are antique, still clinging apparently to the idea that life goes on even though he’s been engaging in an end of the world marathon of sex. After refusing the car, he offers Patrick a chance to be his gay experience. When Patrick expresses reluctance, Craig tries to reassure him by explaining that he’s already had anal sex so it could come in some other variety. There is sadness in Craig’s scenes, but for the most part they add levity to the film.

To really appreciate this film, you must know that it was made and released as the millennium loomed over our heads. It might seem silly now, but at the time there was a sense of unease about what would happen when the clock struck twelve and ushered in the year 2000. The more extreme end saw people readying bunkers and preparing for nothing short of the complete breakdown of civilized society. Of course, nothing happened. The clock struck, one millennium passed and another began and life went on. The film itself isn’t about the millennium, but it is very much about how we feared it and what we were afraid might happen at midnight. In the film, the clock strikes. “It’s over,” declares the marathon woman and then… fade to light.