BY ANNE BRODIE
Not to early to “flag” Canada Film Day on April 16th so you can plan your celebration of us, our culture, artistry, and elbows up pride. We will celebrate with a massive show of “our” content on all platforms, two thousand films in all – in one day. Talk about Oh, Canada! – and a full roster of talent appearances due to swelling Canadian pride! Our century old independent industry is more necessary now than ever, to tell our unique stories past, present and future and remind us what it is to be glorious and free. Our National Film Board of Canada – the NFB – is noted not just here but globally for its production over the past 86 yeas of a vast collection of superior documentaries, animated films and features. Such a rich tapestry; here are the NFB’s offerings on Canada Film Day:
Theatres across the country will participate, while our cable and streaming outlets will flood the day with some of the best films you’ll see about you and us, made in our richly diverse film communities. Hollywood Suite has Canadian films all day long. Our actors, filmmakers and personalities will wear their pride on their sleeves – including Anna Lambe from North of North, Yannick Bisson, Colm Feore, Jan Arden, Peter Keleghan, Deepa Mehta, Loreena McKennit, Mary Walsh, Clement Virgo, along with many more at screenings. What is your favourite Canadian film? Mine is Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Where to watch in person, online and on TV, go to Facebook, TikTok and Instagram: @CanFilmDay and #CanFilmDay and www.canfilmday.ca
Roshan Sethi’s A Nice Indian Boy now playing at TIFF Lightbox, and in Vancouver and Calgary was made in Canada! Karan Soni is Naveen, a young closeted gay man who finds himself at a lot of straight weddings. Folks try to set him up with the ladies but he’s not interested. However he adores the glamour and romance of traditional Indian weddings, and dreams of his own. Jay (Jonathan Groff) a white artist raised in an Indian family appears and sparks fly; Naveen’s finally happy, but he must tell his Indian parents and sarcastic sister Sunita he’s gay; he expects the worst. He gets the opposite – his mother says she knew since he was little. His father is delighted that he’s found love. Sister lets fly sarcastic remarks but she’s pleased for him, just bitter because her marriage crumbled. Naveen and Jay plan the wedding and while there are bumps, miscommunications, an outrageous wedding planner and their gathered love makes for an upbeat, quasi-Hallmark love story; its easy, pleasant and doesn’t tax the brain. The Indian music and dance numbers are sensational, and Zarna Garg who plays the mother provides a masterclass in acting in a monologue towards the end that is shattering in its wisdom and love.
Naomi Watts and Bill Murray are well, if only briefly matched in Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend. Its really about Watt’s Iris and a dog, an adult, philosophical feel-good film about love, death and becoming whole. Murray is Walter a respected, intimidating professor and author, whose philosophy is to embrace disorder and guard against anticipation. He and Iris are longtime friends; she’s collecting and editing his letters for a book but feels uneasy because she realises they won’t do him justice. He dies by suicide; Iris rejects the idea then tries to make sense of it. He’s left her Apollo, his 155-pound Great Dane (played persuasively by Bing) and fix his broken relationship with his daughter; both expectations are problematic. The dog is mammoth and tears up her apartment, won’t sleep or eat as he mourns his abandonment. Together they scatter Walter’s ashes alongside his three ex-wives and daughter; Apollo howls along with the bagpipes. Iris reluctantly falls in love with him but is told she can’t have a dog in her apartment. Even so, the bulding manager also falls in love with the big galoot. She and Walter begin conversing on a regular basis. They decide “dogs don’t commit suicide or weep but they can fall to pieces and have their hearts broken, lose their minds.” The action is internal and emotional as Iris responds to impossible change. Feelings are expressed, but Siegel takes care not to gut punch us. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s bestselling novel. In theatres.
Turns out there’s more to the famous Swiss William Tell fable than meets the eye. No, it wasn’t just the horrendous story of a father forced to point an arrow at an apple atop his son’s head and shoot. It was a result of geopolitical chaos in the 1400s when the Roman Empire fell and Europe underwent sweeping change. Austria was preparing to take over Switzerland – sounds like the US orange presidential stain trying to have his way with Canada, Mexico and Greenland – after coveting it for centuries. German actor Claes Bang is the Swiss Tell, that enduring folk hero, leading a massive cast that includes Rafe Spall, Emily Beecham, Jonathan Pryce and Ben Kingsley and hundreds. Hordes everywhere. Tell’s defence of his homeland, and the lengths to which he goes, drive this complicated story, given the zeitgeist of that period; and he’s just a simple landowner and family man who happens to be a gifted archer. Plotters in Austria’s Castle Hapsburg, vow to “dominate the Swiss from within” through violence as the peace-loving Swiss feel powerless. Austrian soldiers search homes and castles for enemies as we learn of a nest of bees that killed a horse and then died themselves, foreshadowing what might come. They now occupy huge portions of Switzerland. Tell comes into Austria’s crosshairs with his son, leading to the infamous event. Nick Hamm’s historical battle film is deeply violent and disturbing, veering into too much; sure, life may have been primitive and fighting up close and bloody but I chose to stop watching before the end; it was relentless. In theatres April 4.
We are reminded what a capable actor is Michelle Williams in her new eight-parter Dying for Sex. Her ability to enter territory rarely explored by A List actor, and bring grace and dignity is off the charts. Cancer has found Williams’ Molly a second time. After remission from an earlier bout, it’s returned as stage four breast cancer and metastasised into her bones. She won’t have long. A palliative therapist urges her create and fulfill a bucket list; she picks one that’s eluded her – an orgasm with another person. Her husband Steve (Jay Duplass) hasn’t had sex with her in the three years. He’s her caretaker and won’t but carefully dictates her diet and movements. Out of the blue, she thinks about a man she had best sex with years ago and rebels, starts smoking again, drinks Korean pop and actively seeks sex online. One incident requires Steve to pay off a sex video ransom; when he becomes suffocatingly controlling with Molly’s health care, she leaves him and asks best friend Nikki (Jennie Slate) to manage her medical sked. Nikki’s a disaster but learns fast – she loves her best friend. Molly finds it easy to engage in sexual encounters with strangers; it makes her happy given what lies ahead, and obsessively seeks out sex. Williams shows us Molly’s gusto and joy in life increase, free to do what she wants as a stage four cancer adventurer with a purpose. She smiles a lot. Its sexy, profound and philosophical and reminds us that our time here is limited, and to make it count. An FX original on Disney+ and Hulu April 4.
Why is that when life is hard with tariffs, falling stock market, extreme weather, grocery prices, unrest, global upheaval, war, the orange threat south of here, and doom defeat and despair are everywhere, content producers make feel-bad programming? Is it meant to make us more engaged, feel better than the poor sops in the film? The series Pulse, on Netflix, set during a natural disaster in Florida and a hospital trauma centre stretched to bursting, lays it on thick. Staffers make time for romance as it follows the typical medical centre drama trope. Extreme rainfall in front of a hurricane sends a packed school bus over a bridge and into the water. Rescuers work through the weather and water to find as many students as they can, and the driver and get them to Miami’s busiest Level 1 Trauma Center. A newly appointed Chief of Residence Dr. Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) has just stepped into the role when this tragedy lands on her doorstep. Victims flood in with severe injuries, limb losses and trauma; the bus driver with life threatening injuries refuses treatment until he’s told if his “kids” survived and they won’t say because they can’t and they don’t know. Some staffers’ children show up in bad shape. And then its announced that the eye of the approaching hurricane is aimed at the hospital. All of which makes for cool special effects, fulsome storylines and rapid pulses. But that’s kind of wearing right now. Streaming now.