I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case to talk about the best movies and television to watch this weekend, including the deja vu of “A Working Man,” the drama “Darkest Miriam” and the Prime Video, Nicole Kidman drama “Holland.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 36:03)
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk about the new movies coming to theatres including the one-horned horrors of “Death of a Unicorn,” the rompin’, stompin’ deja vu of “A Working Man,” the flightless dramedy of “The Penguin Lessons,” the character study of “Darkest Miriam” and the off-kilter Prime Video film “Holland” with Nicole Kidman.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Darkest Miriam,” a new romantic drama starring “Severance’s” Britt Lower, and now playing in theatres, the title character’s emotional fog is lifted when she begins an unexpected relationship with an artist she meets in the park.
CAST: Britt Lower, Sook-Yin Lee, Jean Yoon, Jaimara Beals, Clyde Whitham, Susannah Hoffmann, Scott McCulloch, Igor Shamuilov, Joshua Odjick, Sarah Li Wen Du, Anita Yung, Peter Millard, Danté Prince, Scott Ryan Yamamura, Jamaal Grant, Aviva Armour-Ostroff, and Laura Afelskie. Directed by Naomi Jaye.
REVIEW: Set in downtown Toronto, “Darkest Miriam” sees “Severance” star Britt Lower play the title character, a librarian left grief stricken after the passing of her father. Her work life, involving a rogue’s gallery of characters who leave their dentures on library tables and masturbate in the stacks, is as chaotic as her private life is orderly and closed down.
Her life shifts gears when she meets Janko (Tom Mercier), a Slovenian artist and cab driver. Their immediate connection, coupled with odd, enigmatic letters addressed to her that she finds in the books at work—“I am Rigoletto, and I will not be doing any more suffering,” reads one of them—snap her out of the emotional funk that has enveloped her.
Based on a 2009 novel by Martha Baillie called “The Incident Report,” “Darkest Miriam” is a subtle film, one that values introspection and absurdist humour over walking an obvious path. Director Naomi Jaye takes her time unveiling the minutiae of Miriam’s life and the secret of the letters, but this isn’t a mystery that needs to be solved. It’s a slice-of-life that is comfortable in its vague nature.
Keeping it compelling is Britt Lower, who hands in a deadpan performance that, while understated, brings a wry charm to the film’s off-kilter humor and remains fully grounded amid the outlandish characters at the library and the mystery of the letters. The soft-spoken Miriam has been through a lot, and it shows in her haunted state, but Lower never lets us forget there is a real person aching to throw off the shackles of her emotional turmoil.
“Darkest Miriam” is a touching film that replaces sentimentality with a quirky sensibility, but, while unconventional, never forgets to be tenderhearted.
