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Canadian mumblecore? Ya. Canadian Cassavettes? You got it.
Terry Miles naturalistic composition When Life Was Good evokes both of those genres, but in a way, it’s kind of better. And Cassavetes is my favourite human being of all time. It’s like the movie Cassavetes would make if he was the funniest man in Canada. Throw Ben Gazzara in this bad-boy for ten minutes and I’d probably faint from the euphoria.
“The film has a hazy, slightly stoned look, and is edited elliptically, as if the director, though obviously charmed by his principals' numerous foibles, is aware that his characters talk a lot of crap, and thought eavesdropping a more appropriate, kinder introduction. It feels like a Cassavetes movie minus the rancour,” writes Steve Gravestock, Associate Director of the Canadian Film Programme. So you see, I’m not just going crazy here with the Casavettes comparison, the man himself Steve Gravestock thinks so as well.
The story is simple, ridiculously hip and sexy. Twenty-something artists drink wine, yuck it up, have friendships that turn into ill-advised love affairs, you know the drill. The actors have a natural rapport as in most films of the genre, but it’s the side-splitting takes of hyper-ridiculous agents and silly-serious actors that make this something more than what the Duplass brothers or the Harvard educated Andrew Bujalski are doing.
Also, the women in this film are insanely sexy. None of them look like Natalie Portman or anything, they look like real girls that would be easy to be friends with and inevitably fall for. This would only be an option if you are super handsome (in a scruffy, boyish way) and funny. I am neither of these things but the breathtaking Kristine Cofsky (pictured above) did smile at me I swear!
Again, if you enjoy hip flicks like Hannah Takes the Stairs or the recent Baghead, you may actually like this better.
Don’t miss the next two screenings, today at 4pm and Thursday at 2pm, both at the AMC.
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