Vancouver writer/director Keith Behrman has a feel for small town life. It's there in every frame of this finely crafted drama about a dysfunctional family living in Cache Creek, in the British Columbia interior. That's right, dysfunctional, it's a five dollar word meaning these folks have a lot of problems. The father, Ed (Callum Keith Rennie) has been having an empty affair with a local woman (Kristin Thomsen) who deserves better. The man has kept his emotions in cold storage since his wife died eight years ago while giving birth to Garnet (Colin Roberts). Deep down inside he blames his son for the tragedy. That's a heavy burden for a kid to bear and it shows in his sad eyes. Garnet may not talk much but he's thinking all the time. He's especially curious about nature, the whole cycle of birth and death going on around him. (Reminds me of young Brian in W.O. Mitchell's classic Canadian novel "Who Has Seen the Wind") Garnet's sister, Flower (Jane McGregor), who is eight years older, has been like a mom to him. Now, after a fling with an irresponsible local Romeo, she's about to have a child of her own. Naturally, Ed flips out, afraid history is gonna repeat itself. There's a bitter argument. Flower moves out. Left to his own devices Garnet begins to "act out" in increasingly creepy ways. I could picture this kid showing up at school with a rifle in a few years. The movie shows the circumstances that can lead up to it. I'm not saying he will. In fact, the people in this film rarely do what you expect them to do. The movie takes its time about revealing its mysteries. The clues come in looks and gestures, bits of dialogue, an accumulation of seemingly unremarkable details. (This movie is not for short attention spans.) It's like being in a strange town. It takes awhile to get the lay of the land and meet the neighbours. Behrman proves to be an astute observer of human behaviour and he has pulled some wonderfully restrained performances from his cast. This may be Rennie's best work to date. And that's saying a lot. If you've seen Hard Core Logo or Suspicious River you already know his range. Roberts is a real find and based on her work here McGregor should really stop wasting her talent in piffle like 2002's Slap Her
She's French.
Behrman makes good use of landscape to define character and sustain mood. The remoteness of the rural BC locations echoes the emotional isolation of the central characters. Growing up in the small Saskatchewan farming community of Shaunavon has obviously given him a special appreciation for the stark visual poetry in those wide open spaces. Judging from his feature film debut the sky is the limit.
Behrman makes good use of landscape to define character and sustain mood. The remoteness of the rural BC locations echoes the emotional isolation of the central characters. Growing up in the small Saskatchewan farming community of Shaunavon has obviously given him a special appreciation for the stark visual poetry in those wide open spaces. Judging from his feature film debut the sky is the limit.