By Anne Brodie
Can’t remember the last time a film made me feel queasy and then Oh, Hi! happened. Sophie Brooks’ unflinching look at love and cruelty stars Molly Gordon as fun loving but intense Iris. She’s dating Isaac (Logan Lerman) an easy-going charmer ; theyre spending their first weekend away together in a remote farmhouse rental. It’s an idyllic spot perfect for romance but a man is staring silently at them then warns them not to have public sex or he’ll call police. So that’d odd. Iris inserts herself into Isaac’s face at every opportunity, then shocks us by picking the lock to a closet in the house. They immediately put to use a stash of S&M doodads. He lets her handcuff his wrists and ankles to the bed, they have sex and she demands he admit they’re a couple. He won’t. He’s seeing other people, totally upending her idea about what the weekend would be and where she stands. So she refuses to remove the cuffs, starts drinking whiskey and calls her mother (Polly Draper from Thirtysomething). Like mother like daughter, as mom finds nothing wrong in what she’s doing and tells her to wear something sexy and use her body to get a commitment. He’s been immobile for hours now. And then she invites friends (Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds) to visit and they also see nothing wrong in her actions. Who are these people? They’re mostly concerned about him pressing kidnapping charges and consider killing him. Things just get weirder and become sickening, suggesting you may never know the truth about people until its too late. Whew. Theatres now.
Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gabriel Byrne lead the cast of Four Letters of Love, an Irish romance set in the western wildlands of Counties Donegal & Antrim. They’re by the ocean, a romantic setting that’s dangerous but exciting and endlessly beautiful. Fionn O’Shea plays Brosnan’s son Nicholas, dealing with his mother’s suicide and his father’s lifelong distance – “We never had a language to talk”. Ann Skelly is Isabel, the daughter of Bonam-Carter’s Margaret and Byrne’s Miuris, a free-spirited convent student (when she doesn’t run away) in love with a stranger she meets in a pub. Isabel is a born rebel seeking to throw off life’s shackles and do her own thing but with the approval and love of her parents. William on the other hand is in decline following his wife’s suicide and regularly abandons family to take long walks across the country, sleeping rough. Filled with desperation, heightened emotion and longing for a better life, the characters are journeying, physically and spiritually. The film’s tuneful and very pretty but never really gels, its messy and could use a hard edit. From award-winning filmmaker Polly Steel based on Niall Williams’ best-selling novel. In theatres now.
Jules Koostachin’s Angela’s Shadow is gradually making its way across Canadian theatres, a moving story of a Cree woman adopted by wealthy white parents, now married to a white journalist. Together they make a life changing journey to the community of her birth. Angela (Sera-Lys McArthur) grew up as a Montreal socialite and knows nothing of her roots, except that her anonymous mother died giving birth to her and her father was Irish. But she remembers her nanny Aunt Mary, and wants to see her. Angela’s due to give birth within weeks. The trip to KiiWeeTin with her husband Henry (Kevin Anderson) will change both of them profoundly. Once there, Angela is haunted by visions and voices while recognsing Henry’s entrenched racism. Locals take him fishing and to a sweat lodge but it doesn’t help. Angela takes tradition seriously as she slowly reintegrates herself. Many of the villagers are residential school survivors and that’s a strong element, including the local Cree Roman Catholic priest. He scares Henry, telling him he’s weak and it’s all his fault. Henry didn’t realise Angela was Cree! Warring traditions and desires, under pressure and the impending birth add to the film’s rocky richness. It is the second in a film trilogy from Koostachin, the second exploring trauma induced by colonialism and the possibility of healing. Also stars Renae Morriseau, Mahiigan Koostachin, and Asivak Koostachin. Jules Koostachin is a writer/director, actor and academic named alongside her son Asivak and the film’s composer Justin Delorme as Variety’s 10 Canadians to watch in 2023. The film begins a week long run at the Carlton Cinemas tonight. Koostachin and McArthur will attend at 6.55 p.m. and lead a Q&A.
Age Before Beauty on BritBox is not up to the excellent streamer’s usual high standards. A silly, low brow, predictable series set in a hair salon somewhere in the UK. Polly Walker the central figure is wasted as Bel the founder and former owner who built it up into a profitable and popular spot. Its now owned and run by the temperamental Leanne (an over-the-top Kelly Harrison) who’s running it into the ground; she argues with customers and staff and won’t spend money to promote the place. Staff beg Bel to set the ship straight, while Leanne stews. Bel’s been happily married for thirty years, but finds a photo of him asleep in bed with a much younger woman; she keeps it to herself for a time but then confronts him; he confesses he’s been involved with a fitness trainer and suggests she get some training (!). He vows to continue his sessions and end the affair but immediately breaks his word. Yikes. This feel bad outing that takes the path of least resistance in its storytelling is highly skippable.
Deaf actor Rose Ayling-Ellis does outstanding work in the unusual BritBox Original crime series Code of Silence. She’s Alison Brooks who holds two jobs, as a cafeteria worker in the local Canterbury police detachment in and a bar, supporting her deaf mother Julie (Fifi Garfield) and herself. She easily communicates via lip reading and other skill sets; DS Ashleigh Francis (Charlotte Ritchie) calls on her to say the department wants to hire her; they’ve lost 2 lip readers and need her to observe gang and report on gang members they believe are about to pull off a major heist. Their last heist resulted in the death of a citizen. They hope Alison can glean the where and when; however she becomes overinvolved in her covert mission; she tracks Liam (Kieron Moore) the gang and their leader “Cruella’, notes their conversations and hands over results. Despite warnings she takes a job in the pub next to Liam’s home where the gang gathers; Liam accidentally knocks her off her bike and takes her to hospital and they chat and become friendly, romantic. She reported there was to be a gang meeting the night she was hit and later police hold her responsible for ruining the opportunity to arrest the gang because they cancelled the heist. Alison’s an exceptional woman, smart and brave, helped no doubt by the adapting to a speaking world, but naïveté and risk taking are her downfall. She’s in a tight situation but won’t take no for an answer when police tell her to back down. This is the promising start of a series that could go any which way given this headstrong young woman. Fabulous! Streaming now.
Filmmakers Steve Mims and Brian Rodgers detail the devastating impact of huggably soft toilet paper on the environment in Charmin Wipes Out a Forest, a short doc available now on YouTube. Canada’s vast boreal forest, is one of the last remaining on earth – 1.5B acres, trillions of trees, with enormous wild animals and predator populations and the summer residence of all of North and Central America’s birds. Besides overlogging virgin forests, companies spray with herbicides with carcinogens, so soil’s hormone transfer between plants stops. Our forests are treated like crops, not an ecosystem PLUS the trees they plant are too close together and clear-cut areas encourage the rapid spread of wildfires. Justine, a descendant of James Gamble says the Board needs to act now. Stop engineering the forest until it no longer functions and we lose our protection against CO2 – we must cherish the natural world. So, what can we do? A lot! Use bamboo paper goods, buy a bidet, protest, rally and get the word out. Call the corporations out, they don’t have to have virgin wood to baby your bottom. Get real P&G. Here is the film:
Complete Short