Separated. Films reviewed: I Used to be Funny, Longing, Robot Dreams
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Not all love is sexual, and not all relationships lead to marriage. This week, I’m looking at three bittersweet dramas about people separated, against their will, from those they love. There’s a teenaged girl separated from her nanny (who is also a standup comic); a man separated from his biological son (who is also dead); and a dog separated from his best friend (who is also a robot).
I Used To Be Funny
Wri/Dir: Ally Pankiw
Sam (Rachel Sennott: Shiva Baby) is a standup comic in downtown Toronto. She shares an apartment with friends and fellow comics Paige and Philip (Sabrina Jalee, Caleb Hearon). But Sam can’t do her act anymore. She rarely showers, changes her clothes, or eats. She dumped her longtime boyfriend Noah (Ennis Esmer), and she quit the day job that used to pay her rent. Now she just sits around all day, staring at the wall. Why? Well, obviously she’s severely depressed. She’s also recovering from a traumatic violent event.
Things used to be better. She had a job in the suburbs as a nanny for a troubled 12-year-old named Brooke (Olga Petsa). Brooke’s mother was dying in hospital, her aunt had little free time and her dad was always busy — he’s a cop. But now Brooke has disappeared and her aunt doesn’t even know where to look for her. And when Brooke throws a rock through her window, Sam decides maybe she should join the effort to find the runaway and bring her home. But where is she hiding, why is she angry at Sam, and what will happen if she finds her?
I Used to Be Funny is a bittersweet comedy about a wise-
But it’s also Sam dealing with a not-at-all funny event — no spoilers here. It costars many Canadian comic actors, including Hoodo Hersi, Dan Beirne (The Twentieth Century, Great, Great, Great) and Jason Jones in a rare serious role. Rachel Sennott is excellent as Sam.
I Used to be Funny is a humorous look at depression and assault.
Longing
Wri/Dir: Savi Gabizon
Daniel Bloch (Richard Gere) is a successful businessman, and committed bachelor. He enjoys sex, not commitment or kids. He owns a factory and lives in a luxurious penthouse suite looking down on Manhattan. But when a when a surprise visitor arrives at his door, he is floored by her message. Rachel (Suzanne Clément) is a Canadian woman he had a fling with 20 years earlier. She reveals she was pregnant when she returned to Canada, later married and raised Allen — his biological son — with another man she married. But Allen died in an accident two weeks earlier. Daniel is floored. She hasn’t come for money or legal action, just to tell him the news. So he travels north to Hamilton, to attend a memorial and find out more about the son he never knew. And what he found was both frightening and endearing.
He talks to the people who played a key role in his son’s life, and discovers some surprising facts. He was a piano virtuoso. His best friend (Wayne Burns) says Allen was involved in a drug deal. A much younger girl (Jessica Clement) was in love with him, but says the feelings were not reciprocal. And his school teacher Alice (Diane Kruger) says he was obsessed with her and painted romantic poems about her on the school walls. What was Daniel’s son really like? And what can he do to remember someone he never knew?
Longing is a quirky, disjointed drama about kinship and death as a father desperately tries to become a belated part of his late son’s life. Richard Gere underplays his role, almost to the point of absurdity, but it somehow makes sense within the nature of his character. It’s also about the boy’s parents, not just Daniel and Rachel, but his other de facto parents And it all takes place in a very posh and elegant version of Hamilton, unlike any Hamilton I’ve ever seen. This is a strange movie that sets up lots of tension-filled revelations, but then attempts to resolve them all using an absurd ceremony.
Longing never blew me away, but it stayed interesting enough to watch.
Robot Dreams
Co-Wri/Dir: Pablo Berger
It’s the early 1980s in the East Village of NY City. There are tons of people, but they’re not people, they’re animals. Literally. Bulls and ducks, racoons and gorillas. Dog — a dog with floppy ears and a pot belly — lives there, alone in an apartment, gazing longingly out the window at happy couples cavorting in the summer sun. Dog plays pong by himself, or eats TV dinners while watching TV. He’s bored and lonely, with no one to play Pong with or just hang out. Until he orders a robot — as advertised on TV, some assembly required — and waits eagerly for it to arrive. He’s a delight with tubular arms, a mailbox shaped trunk, an elongated German helmet as a head, with round eyes and a happy smile. They are instant friends, maybe soulmates. They go rollerskating in central park, take pictures in a photo booth. Feelings grow. Another day they head out for the beach. They sunbathe and swim together — a perfect day. Until the robot finds himself rusted solid just as the beach is closing for the night. And despite Dog’s efforts, he is too heavy to drag home, so he comes back one next day to get him. But the beach is closed for the season, locked up behind a metal fence. And despite repeated tries, Dog can’t 
seem to rescue Robot from his sandy prison. Can Robot survive for a year, unmoving, in the great outdoors? And will that spark between Robot and Dog still remain in the spring?
Robot Dreams is an amazing animated film about friendship and loss. It’s called Robot Dreams because much of the film takes place inside the robot’s imagination as he lay on the beach, It’s set in the grittiness of 1980s New York, with graffiti-filled subways, punks in East Village, break dancing teens and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Remember Zootopia, that animated movie where everyone is an animal? Robot Dreams is the flip side of 
that, darker, cooler, adult, more Fritz the Cat than Disney or Pixar. There’s also no dialogue, but it’s anything but silent, with constant music and grunts and quick-changing gags and cultural references. But it’s also very moving — you can feel the pathos between Dog and Robot. I saw this movie cold (without reading any descriptions) and it wasn’t till afterwards that I realized it’s by Pablo Berger, the Spanish director who, more than a decade ago, made the equally amazing Blancanieves, a silent, B&W version of Snow White as a toreador. The man’s a genius.
I totally love Robot Dreams.
I Used To Be Funny, Longing and Robot Dreams all open theatrically this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies each Saturday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Canadians coming of age. Films reviewed: Riceboy Sleeps, Golden Delicious, Brother
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Spring Film Festival season is revving up in Toronto, with Cinefranco, Human Rights Watch, The Canadian Film Fest and Tiff’s Next Wave rounding out March into April.
This week, I’m looking at three new Canadian coming-of-age dramas about sons or grandsons of immigrants. There’s a young man in Scarborough who worships his big brother, one in Vancouver who only has eyes for his new neighbour, and another kid in Vancouver who wonders why he doesn’t have a father.
Rice Boy Sleeps
Wri/Dir: Anthony Shim
It’s the early 1990s in British Columbia. So-young (Choi Seung-yoon) is a recent immigrant from Korea who packs and seals cardboard boxes in a factory. Her son, Dong-hyun (Dohyun Noel Hwang) is shy, nervous and wears thick glasses. She taught him to read and write Korean but he’s starting public school for the first time. The other kids — all white — are merciless, say his kimbap smells like farts, and mock everything from his face to his name. His teacher calls her in to change her boy’s name to something more “Canadian” — she gives her a list of approved choices. He asks his mother, why don’t I have a father? Ask me later, she says. But the next time anyone bullies you, say you know taekwando and punch them, hard. He follows her directions and gets suspended for violence.
10 years later, he’s a teenager (Ethan Hwang) who wears contact lenses and dyes his hair blond. His teacher tells all the kids to draw a family tree, but Dong-hyun has no one to include but his mother… and she was an orphan. Again, he asks his mom who 
his father was. She brushes his question off. While his mother is at work, he tries soft drugs alcohol and porn with a friend (Hunter Dillon — who also plays a best friend in Golden Delicious). But he still feels listless and unmoored. Meanwhile So-young has met a boyfriend (played by the director) and is considering marriage, until some shocking news makes her rethink her entire life… and Dong-hyun’s, too
Riceboy Sleeps is a lovely and poetic tale of a boy and his mother trying to fit in, while grasping at whatever’s left of their history. It’s a story of immigrants living in a blatantly racist society but one that also looks at the patriarchal cruelty of the place they came from. It’s minimalist and concise, showing only what is absolutely necessary for maximal emotional impact. That — with good acting, beautiful cinematography, and scenic opening and closing shots — makes Riceboy Sleeps seem almost like a work of art.
Winner of the TIFF 2022 Platform Prize.
Golden Delicious
Dir: Jason Karman
It’s present-day Vancouver. Jake — nicknamed J-Pop (Cardi Wong) is starting his last year of high school. He likes taking photographs and watching basketball. His sister Janet (Claudia Kai) is going to culinary school, while his Mom and Dad (Leeah Wong, Ryan Mah) work 12-hour-days at their upscale Chinese restaurant, passed down from the grandparents.
Jake’s looking forward to spending time with his best buds Sam and Gary, and his childhood sweetheart Vee (Parmiss Sehat). She wants sex and lots of it, while Jake thinks they should wait till marriage before doing the big one. And he’s under lots of pressure to make the basketball team. I was MVP when I was in high school, and I’d be a pro if it weren’t for my knee injury, says dad. But everything changes when a new neighbour Aleks (Chris Carson) appears on the scene. He’s a terrific player and is outspokenly gay. He’s a ringer who moved to the school from 
down east specifically to play on this team. And Jake can’t stop staring at him and snapping pics through his bedroom window. Once they meet, Aleks is willing to help improve Jake’s skills… both on and off the court. Jake is torn between family pressure and personal identity, long-term love vs short term lust. Will Jake make the team? Will Aleks make Jake? And what will his girlfriend, family, and friends do if they ever find out?
Golden Delicious is a coming-of-age and coming-out drama set within a Chinese-Canadian Vancouver family. It deals with current issues like bullying, the lack of privacy (due to social networks), and how parental expectations interfere with their kids’ own wants and needs. I found the high school rom-com aspects cliched, everything from two people bumping into each other and dropping their books in their first meetings, to confrontations in the locker room, to who will ask whom to the 
prom. Much more interesting are the family plot turns, from Janet reverse engineering her grandmother’s recipes, to Jake’s own subtle subterfuge to get out of playing basketball, as well as the very real grinding pressures of running a restaurant (the restaurant is called Golden Delicious). That’s what makes this film worth watching.
Brother
Wri/Dir: Clement Virgo
It’s the 1990s in a working class neighbourhood in Scarborough (Toronto). Michael (Lamar Johnson) is a high school student who lives in an apartment tower with his hard-working mother (Marsha Stephanie Blake). He idolizes his big-brother Frances (Aaron Pierre) who serves as a father figure in his life. Frances is bigger, tougher and better connected than Michael. The gangs know enough to stay away from him, and not to harass Michael, either. Michael hopes he can tap some of Frances’s aura to meet a girl who he really likes. Aisha (Kiana Madeira) is the smartest girl in school and he wants to really meet her. Michael and his friends hope to take hiphop to a new level. There’s a place to hang, a barber shop, where DJs — like Frances’ best bud — spins tracks after closing. But their big break, an audition with high-profile record producers 
downtown, doesn’t pan out. And tensions rise when the twin forces of gangsters on one side and the police force on the other are encroaching on their safe space and tearing their lives apart. Can the sons of Jamaican immigrants survive in the mean streets of Scarborough?
Brother is a fully-imagined, coming-of-age story by two brothers in the 90s. It deals with masculinity, violence sexuality, and black identity. It deftly contrasts between the claustrophobic highrise housing where they live and the nearby idyllic Rouge 
River where they seek refuge. Based on the book by Toronto writer David Chariandy, Brother has a novelistic feel to it, and its use of widescreen cinematic scenes, as in a showdown in the courtyard outside their apartment, gives it an epic sweep. Brother is a powerful and moving drama.
Nominated for 12 Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Picture.
Brother and Riceboy Sleeps open in Toronto this weekend, and at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this and next week; check you local listings. Golden Delicious is premiering at the Canadian Film Festival, which runs from March 28th through April 1. Go to canfilmfest.ca for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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