In the classic 1998 film “Smoke Signals” Cree actor Cody Lightning played the younger version of the lead character Victor. “I’m Cody Lightning,” he says, “Little Victor, as most people know me. Or should know me. ‘Smoke Signals.’ Big movie. I was in it.”
A quarter century later comes “Hey Viktor!,” a new mockumentary, now playing in theatres, starring Lightning as an exaggerated version of himself as he desperately seeks to relive old glories.
“I did not want this movie to end,” said Gene Siskel of “Smoke Signals.” “In fact, I wanted a sequel.”
In the new film, Lightning aims to give Siskel his wish and create a sequel to the movie that started it all for him. “When ‘Smoke Signals 2’ comes out,” he says, “game over.”
We first meet Lightning, as an alcoholic teacher of a very intense acting classes for kids while performing in cut-rate pornos in his off hours. “A lot of people don’t understand the artist’s life,” he says.
When his ex, and mother of his kids, begins dating “Canada’s latest Indigenous superstar” (Peter Craig Robinson) and announces she’s moving to the United States, he hits rock bottom.
We see all this, because the documentary crew following him around isn’t actually making a movie about his life and career, they’re actually from an intervention style TV show called “Getting Sober” hosted by Craig Broner (Colin Mochrie).
He takes the opportunity to realize his dream. Along with the crew and his manager and BFF Kate (Hannah Cheeseman) he begins production on “Smoke Signals 2.”
“If we don’t do this,” he tells Kate, “I have nothing. I’m losing my kids. I’m not getting parts. I’m losing you. Let’s do this for us.”
“Hey Viktor!” may be the “Spinal Tap” of child actor movies. Funny and absurd, but with an undercurrent of reality that grounds the heartfelt moments, it delivers laughs and some bittersweet moments. Make no mistake, this is a comedy, first and foremost, and a raunchy one at that, but as it works its way to the end, it careens through a dysfunctional journey of self-discovery.
At the heart of the film is Lightning. Playing a character who wants to overcome the demons that plague his adult life, he makes peace with those he has wronged, and with himself. It’s not a subtle performance, the nudity, the poop jokes and the ruthless swearing see to that, but it is a heartfelt one.
He’s supported by nice performances from the cast, including Cheeseman, who does powerful work as Lightning’s faithful friend, Mochrie, who brings the fire and Simon Baker, who plays himself as a grown-up star of “Smoke Signals.”
“Hey Viktor!” is a go-for-it comedy that matches humour with heart.
The songs of Hank Williams are everything the new movie about his life isn’t.
Emotionally forthright, tunes like “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Hey, Good Lookin’” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” were perfectly poignant, ripe with universal sentiments. “I Saw the Light” sees Tom Hiddleston hand in a terrific performance in a paint-by-the-numbers biopic that avoids the soul searing greatness of Williams’s work.
The story of Williams’s self destruction isn’t unique in the annals of popular music. He lingered longer than members of the legendary 27 Club—Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse all passed away at the age of 27—but Williams was a trailblazer of the Troubled Artist Syndrome Sect. Prodigious talent plus a predilection for booze, pills and infidelity formed the man and informed his music.
We meet him pre-fame. He’s a twenty-one year old troubadour about to wed Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), a singer with a longing for fame but without the talent to back up her ambition. Their unsettled union is the thread that weaves its way throughout the story, binding together the biographical elements.
As his fame grows his addictions drive a wedge between him and the people most important to him, Audrey, his band and the Grand Ole Opry. “I’m a professional at making a mess of things,” he says. The best and truest relationship in his life comes from the people he didn’t know, his audience. They understood him in a way that those closest to him never could.
There is rich material to be mined from the life of a man who turned his troubled life experience into art, but “I Saw the Light” chooses to skim the surface. It’s the kind of movie where Williams says, “I’m sorry babe.” She says, “For what?” and, of course, he answers, “Everything.” Hiddleston brings a broken swagger to the role, a combination of charisma and vulnerability, but strains to create any kind of sympathy for a performer who was the architect of his own demise.
The music is terrific so it shouldn’t be a surprise that when the movie focuses one the songs, it sings, but when it looks at the non-musical components of Williams’s life it hits a sour note.
