LOGLINE: Told on a broken timeline, “I Used to be Funny” toggles between past and present to present a vivid portrait of Sam (Rachel Sennott), a stand-up comic struggling with PTSD. As she reckons with her old life, she must also consider joining the search for Brooke (Olga Petsa), a missing teenager she used to nanny.
CAST: Rachel Sennott, Sabrina Jalees, Caleb Hearon, Jason Jones, Dani Kind, Ennis Esmer, Dan Beirne, Stephen Alexander, Hoodo Hersi, Miguel Rivas. Directed by Ally Pankiw.
REVIEW: A mix of humor and heartbreak, “I Used to be Funny” is a bittersweet movie that effectively captures the inner workings of a traumatized mind. (MILD SPOILER ALERT) Because of the film’s flash- forward-and-backwards structure, it takes time for the portrait to come into focus, but director Pankiw handles the time shifts gracefully, fitting the story shards together to form a complicated but thoughtful movie that doesn’t tip its hand until the third act.
At the heart of it all is Sennott, whose honest, sensitive work depicts the numbness, hopelessness and isolation that survivors of sexual assault experience.
It’s a heavy subject, given a respectful treatment, but it’s not without its lighter moments. The relationship between Sam and Brooke bubbles with warmth and, despite the title, humor, which amplifies the disconnection Sam feels in the present-day sequences. In their totality, the flashbacks placed against the present-day scenes makes for a fulsome portrait of the harsh aftereffects of sexual assault and Sam’s healing journey.
“I Used to be Funny” is a showcase for Sennott’s dramatic side, and a stirring and authentic look at PTSD and the road to recovery.
“I Like Movies,” a coming-of-age story set against a background of angst, anxiety and Paul Thomas Anderson, is a period piece set in a time when local Blockbusters were shrines for suburban film lovers.
Set in 2003, in Burlington, Ontario, a small city midway between Toronto and Niagara Falls, the film centers around teenage film bro and wannabe moviemaker Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen). Arrogant and insecure, he allows his love of film, dream of attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and anxiety alienate the most important people in his life.
His life is changed when he gets a job at Sequels, a cheekily-named video store in his hometown. He’s there for the ten free weekly rentals available to employees and to recommend obscure art films to folks who would rather watch “Shrek.”
The job, of course, isn’t exactly what Lawrence hoped it would be. At the insistence of his manager Alana (Romina D’Ugo) he is forced to wear a sash, emblazed with the titles of movies he thinks are beneath him. And, let’s face it, learning to rotate stock in the drink cooler is about as far from movie making as you can get.
As the summer ends so does the dream of attending NYU, forcing Lawrence, with the help of his frazzled mother (Krista Bridges) and some tough love from Alana, to rethink his movie dreams and confront reality.
Part work-place comedy—think “High Fidelity” only set in a video store—part character study, “I Like Movies” is sweet-natured, funny film that digs deep to make us feel empathy for Lawrence, a socially awkward character who hides his real feelings behind a facade of bluster and pretension.
Lawrence is not a likable character, at least not when we first meet him, and yet director and screenwriter Chandler Levack—who worked in at a Blockbuster Video as a teen—inspires empathy for him. His arrogant bluster stems from insecurity, and the more we get to know about him, the more we feel for him even as he drones on about Paul Thomas Anderson or Stanley Kubrick. As Alana pushes him to reevaluate his attitudes and look at life beyond the screen, Lehtinen allows us to see the wheels turning inside the character’s head as his redemption looms.
Strong performances, particularly from Lehtinen and D’Ugo, and a genuinely heartfelt script make this take on adolescent angst (and film bros) a winning debut for Levack.
Biopics are a movie staple. They give us insight to people we’ll never meet and bring history to life but there has never been a biography quite like the Matthew Rankin’s “The Twentieth Century,” coming to VOD this week. A heightened look at the life of Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, it’s part Dada, part Art Deco and utterly unique.
The bizarre biography sees a marvellously deadpan Daniel Beirne as the young Mackenzie King. As a child his mother (Louis Negin) prophesied his political destiny to become the tenth Prime Minister. King’s road to history significance is a rocky one, marked by romance trouble, chronic masturbation, over confidence, sexual fetishes and an ice maze.
You didn’t learn any of this in Mr. Parker’s history class.
Director Matthew Rankin uses a heightened version of his main character’s biographical details to craft a satire of Canadian identity and masculinity. Like a Heritage Minute on acid the film details King’s campaign. Instead of policy the film pits politicians against one another in “traditional” Canadian pastimes like baby seal clubbing and waiting your turn.
A farce coupled with deep commentary and a heightened yet minimalist style that recalls the films of Guy Maddin by way of German Expressionism, “The Twentieth Century” has timely messages about the dangers of empty political rhetoric and the processes by which we elect our leaders.
Rankin casts a wide net here, parodying everything from politics and diffident national outlook to British imperialism and even foot fetishes but does so in a wonderfully surreal way that is equal parts silly and sincere.
“Suck it Up” is a buddy flick where the main characters aren’t exactly buddies.
When we first meet Ronnie (Grace Glowicki) she’s a drunk rebounding from the death of her brother Garrett. Constantly on the tipple, she almost winds up in the hospital after a lawn mowing accident. Concerned and looking for help for her out of control daughter, mother Dina (Nancy Kerr) calls Faye (Erin Carter), Ronnie’s former best buttoned-down friend and Garrett’s ex-girlfriend. Faye responded differently to Garrett’s death. Although they broke up a year before his passing, she is troubled that she didn’t pick up a phone call from her ex just days before his death. Cue intimacy issues.
When an intervention of sorts fails Faye kidnaps Ronnie—ie: puts her passed out body in the front seat of Garrett’s Mustang convertible—and heads for Garrett’s family cottage in Invermere, British Columbia. What was planned as a time of introspection and sobriety becomes something else as the women’s differences take center stage. Each processes their grief in a different way as they try and find some common ground other than their relationships with Garrett. The longer they spend in the country the more insight into each other and into the nature of their time with Garrett, for better and for worse.
“Suck it Up” is anchored by two great performances from Glowicki and Carter. As Ronnie and Faye they are polar opposites bound by a single factor, Garrett. Thrown together, they are an odd couple, damaged and not so sure of their resilience. As surprising revelations about Garrett (who we never see) emerge the leads shift and change in believable ways. At the risk of making this bouncy little film seem heavier than it actually is, I’ll say that it understands and conveys how grief and perspective are two entirely different things and does so with heartfelt humour. It’s a not exactly a startlingly new observation, but it is earnest and well portrayed.
I could have done without the climatic and cathartic mud fight scene but the movie sparkles in enough ways to make up for one grubby misstep.
