Paul Shepard: REVIEW ROUND-UP!

Today is the day!  Anyone living in the greater Toronto area needs to get their butts to the Carlton this weekend to see my film The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, screening at 4:25pm and 9:20pm daily.  For those who don't know, the opening weekend of any film, particularly small films, is crucial.  For a film like ours it's the difference between only running one week in one city, and get expanded.  If we do well this weekend the chances of the film moving on to another city is very good, as well as getting an extra week in Toronto.
So, to the reviews.  A lot of filmmakers will claim they don't read reviews, and I'm sure some don't.  I haven't been doing this long enough not to care what other people think.  For a small film like ours a review can be the deciding factor on whether or not someone wants to give it a shot.  So without further adieu, here they are... Click on the name of the paper (the heading) to get the actual review, otherwise I'll just talk about it briefly:

The National Post:  I'd be lying if I didn't say that getting this three star review meant a lot to me.  But what meant even more was that this reviewer really seemed to "get" the film.  And to boot they said some really lovely things.

The Toronto Sun: While I'm sure she doesn't remember it, Liz Braun reviewed a short film festival a few years back where she commented on my film and said that I had done in five minutes what others like it couldn't do at feature length.  It was a nice thing to say.  And she has more nice things here, in particular that this is a film that should make Canadians proud.

The Toronto Star: Not our biggest supporter, but still nothing to shake your fist at.  No film is for everyone and considering how routinely romantic comedies get slammed by critics, I think we did just fine here.  

The Grid:  The black sheep of our reviews.  I very well can't post all the positive and leave out the negative.  I'm trying to avoid reviewing the reviews, however I can't help but think that from reading this one that this reviewer just hates the mockumentary format to begin with - so it's no surprise that we didn't get much love.  You can't win them all!

These are all the reviews I've seen so far, if anyone spots any more please let me know - post in the comments.  Otherwise, get your butt to the theatre and tell everyone you know!

The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard THEATRICAL RELEASE!

At long last my first feature is being released in to the theatres!  For those that live in the GTA (or that feel like traveling at all!)  It will be screening at the Carlton (Yonge/Carlton) from Friday, Oct 21st to Thursday, Oct 27th.  The showtimes are 4:25pm and 9:20pm (apologies that there are no early evening screenings - I have absolutely no control over that). 
We've been nominated for several awards along the way as well as having played as several of Canada's top film festivals, and others around the world.  The programmer at the Calgary International Film Festival had this to say about the film:

Part HIGH FIDELITY, part THE OFFICE with a dash of SPINAL TAP thrown in for good measure, THE UNTITLED WORK OF PAUL SHEPARD is a mockumentary with genuine heart to go with the genuine laughs.

So get your butt out and support a great Canadian film!  And on Friday and Saturday nights get a chance to meet some of the cast at the Q&As!  We are expecting reviews in all the major papers, so we'll post them here as well (unless they absolutely trash the film, and then I'll say that 'I don't read reviews...')
Looking forward to seeing you all out there.  Spread the word!!!

Three 2 Five Questions: Christine Horne

I have a notebook in my office where I keep a list of names of actors that impress me, ones that I'll hopefully be lucky enough to work with at some point.  When I came home from seeing The Stone Angel the first thing I did was add Christine Horne's name to that list.  Then, sometime later, when we were casting The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, I was delighted to see her name on our audition list.  If you live in Toronto and you're a theatre goer you probably recognize her from various theatrical productions - just this past summer she was Juliet in this year's Dream in High Park production of Romeo & Juliet, and last year she won a Dora Award for Turn of the Screw.
Without further delay I present the interview I did with her.  Keep in mind, as per usual, the audio isn't spectacular and the location was fairly under lit.
Mid way through the interview Christine mentions something that I should share a link to.  Click here for that.




UPDATE!
The lovely people over at The Mind Reels found the commercial of Christine! Here it is below...

Film Fest Tour: Day 9 & 10

5:15pm I had a pretty relaxed morning. I spent most of it doing a polish on, what will hopefully be, my next feature. Then I headed downtown to walk around, met up with the one and only Kris Holden-Ried who arrived safely from Newfoundland. Ironically both he and Christine Horne shot back-to-back episodes of Republic of Doyle so look for that in the near future! We did some shopping, I got some gifts for the loved ones back home and then we parked ourselves at a bar. And now I'm brewing some coffee in the hotel sweet 'cause I got a little more saucy than I had intended. It was nice to see a familiar face after a few days of being on my own, and I have a particular fondness for Kris. The guy makes me smile from ear to ear. So we're drying out in our respective hotel rooms before heading out for dinner and then to screen the film. I'm excited for tonight's screenings - at both Edmonton and Sudbury we had afternoon screenings and I think the evenings have a different vibe to them so it should be interesting. I've really enjoyed my time on the road touring this film. I love how it plays, I love how people respond to it. But I'm really looking forward to tomorrow afternoon when I get to pick Ephraim up from daycare. This Saturday we've got the final screening of this little tour in Toronto at the Indie-Can festival. So if you haven't seen the film check it out there. It's Saturday night, at the Innis Town College Theatre, 2 Sussex Ave, 8:30pm and it's a FREE SCREENING. So that means no tickets, which means you might want to get there early.
Okay. Time for coffee.

6:17am I'm tired. We went out for dinner and drinks with Kris' friends from Calgary, and for some reason Kris and I thought it would be a good idea to have an espresso shot around 8:30pm to help keep us going through the film. I think I slept for maybe an hour all night with our
5:00am wake up to go to the airport. I'm beat.
That being said, the screening was fantastic. Really solid crowd, good energy, lots of laughs, lots of reactions. Good Q&A afterwards and discussion outside the theatre following the film. It plays pretty well to an audience, I'm sure that it's not everyone's cup of tea but enough people enjoy it so it does have an audience. Sitting in the airport waiting for my plane - Kris and I are on different airlines, but the same flight time back to Toronto, so we're racing to see who gets there first :) It's been a blast visiting these cities and showing the film, but I'm ready to go home. I miss my family. Can't wait to pick Ephraim up today. And again, for those who haven't seen it, we've got a screening this Saturday at Innis Town Theatre, 8:30pm.
Here's hoping I sleep on the flight...

Film Fest Tour: Day 4

6:51am It's official, I don't think my body will tolerate more than six hours of sleep at a time. I forgot to say yesterday that before our screening Mireille was lovely enough to drive us to the Big Nickel and let Christine and I act like tourists. I've been taking a few photos here and there, but I think I'll just post them all at the end. We have to leave the hotel in about an hour to catch our flight to Toronto, then a lay-over, then we'll hit Edmonton. Hoping I can grab a nap today at some point, otherwise I think by the evening the 2 hour time difference is going to kick my ass.

4:25pm Just landed in Edmonton so it's actually closer to 6:30. The layover was pretty painless. I had a phone interview with one of the students at the University of Calgary - I'm screening the film there and talking with them, so he just wanted to get some info beforehand. The flight was pretty great. Gotta say, it's been a long time since I've flown Air Canada and I was damn impressed. It's the first time I've seen the little TV things that make it so you can customize your viewing, and I finally got to see The Trotsky. Got to our hotel, which is pretty freaking nice. I have this gigantic bed. I'm going to try to take a nap before we hit the functions. It's opening night of the festival here so it should be pretty exciting!

12:45am (technically 2:45am). You know how you get to the point where you're just so tired that you're not tired anymore. That's where I'm at. At any rate I'm hoping it'll help with the time difference. Today was a weird day as we were a little burnt out so I don't think we got a great first impression of the city - but through no fault of it's own. I'm open minded and optimistic!
After checking in, relaxing, I headed down to a little wine/cheese thing where it was a little empty, but I ended up getting to chat with Michael McGowan, the director of One Week as well as tonight's opening night film Score: A Hockey Musical. Afterwards there was a reception, but we got lost walking back to the Hotel first, and then I got lost walking back to the reception. I will master the streets of Edmonton - I swear!!! I got back to the party and got to hang out with Jay Brazeau who is one of those amazing character actors who have been around forever. Seriously, look the guy up on imdb.com - he's got almost 200 acting credits to his name. Incredible. We're both screening tomorrow so we'll check out each other's films.
And now. Time for bed. Please please please let me sleep in… please!!!

Film Fest Tour: Day 3

8:43am I realized that the beds in the hotel have these machine things that let you make the bed harder or softer - so I had a much better sleep and actually slept in a little. Huzzah! I was able to deal with some e-mail, and now I'm going to try and get a little work done before Christine and I meet up to have breakfast. Then we want to do the big nickel, although it's supposed to piss down rain all day, which means it's a good day for everyone to go the movies!

3:57pm Just got back from the screening. I kind of felt like I needed a chance to chill out a little bit after the screening. Usually I'm just go-go-go, but a little "me" time was in order. The screening went pretty damn great. I have to say that I was a little surprised that we didn't have as many people as I've come accustomed to seeing at this festival, but whatever we lacked in numbers we made up for in enthusiasm. Lots of laughter, sighs, and general reactions. The Q&A after was the first I'd done for this film and I felt more comfortable than I thought I was. Most of the crowd stuck around and we covered quite a bit of stuff. What was really nice was that after a lot of the people who didn't stick around for the Q&A found me in the lobby and came up to me singing their praises for the film, and saying that they can't believe that the house wasn't packed and that people missed out on a great film. So it was pretty damn rewarding. Numbers are always good, but a quality audience is far more important - and with a small film like ours it's important to manage your expectations. I consider it a win. Afterwards Rayne, the producer of Le Divan du Monde, and I spent the ride back to the hotel singing each others praises. I'm looking forward to getting to know her and her partner Dom. Resting. Might check out some shops. I have a friend whose in town with a short, so hopefully I'll see her later.

6:23pm Treated myself to an awesome dinner at the hotel bar. Mmmmm.

11:38pm The rest of today was more or less uneventful. Went and saw Howl, and then to another party. Starting to feel a bit burnt out and luckily Christine had the good sense to head back to the hotel which made me follow closely after. Gotta check out by 8am to catch our flight. Much excitement to follow! I will say though, any filmmaker considering coming to Sudbury - DO IT. Goddamn this is an awesome festival. The staff is amazing and lovely, and treats you like royalty, and the audiences are just hungry for film. It's a great festival for filmmakers. Do not hesitate to submit your films here!

Film Fest Tour: Day 2

8:05am I think it's official, my son Ephraim has ruined me for sleep. I got to bed shortly after midnight and was looking forward to a fantastic sleep. I got up around 5. Tossed and turned, slept kind-of-sorta-of, and then by 6:30 I decided to give up trying. Gave Emily and Eph a quick call and then I headed to the pool for a swim. It. Was. Cold. But refreshing! Hopped in the shower in my room and was greeted by the world's best smelling soap. My sometimes writing partner Ryan sent me some stuff to look at overnight, so I'm now going to head down to the lobby and see if there's a diner within walking distance so I can grab some breakfast and do a little work. I'm just hoping that these aren't the kind of breakfast places that open at 10am and laughably still call themselves breakfast places.

1:12am Today was busy. I went off looking for a place that I was recommended to for breakfast called Frank's Cafe, but after forty-five minutes I couldn't find it so I decided to settle for the hotel breakfast - which worked out great because I ended up randomly meeting up with Armand and we had breakfast together, after which we decided to watch each other's films in the media centre. So needless to say, I didn't get any work done. Tomorrow might not be any better.
Just as I was heading off to my CTV interview, the lovely Christine Horne got to the hotel. I really can't explain how happy I am that she's here. Of course, as a representative of the film, but I just really adore Christine and I like spending time with her. I got to CTV and they prepped me, letting me know that it would be a two minute interview and I'd probably only get answers to two questions in. So I decided to keep my answers short and tight so we could get more questions in and therefore more information out. I think I did pretty okay. They make you sit in a separate studio, just facing a camera, so that's… interesting… but I got a lot off, I was able to mention our distributor, talk about what the film's about, when it's screening, that Christine is in town, and then I was even able to pimp out the other two films in our screening program.
When I got back out Christine and I went for lunch at a place called the Laughing Buddha and one of the things they focus on is sandwiches. The five year-old inside of me decided on something called "Sticky Mouth", which was: peanut butter, bananas, cranberries, and cashews - with a pickle on the side. It was delightful.
I got lost walking back and rushed to a screening of a film called Everybody's Couch (or Le Divan du Monde), of which I'll sing the praises of below. I then climbed down the mountain and browsed through the Chapters waiting for Christine, we grabbed dinner and then watched Jack Goes Boating.
The after party tonight was fun again - not quite the same as being in a cave, but we really enjoyed the band playing in the background. It was fronted by a local musician named Sarah Craig, we're going to try and pick up her CD tomorrow at a music store nearby us.
We got back to the hotel and decided to hit the hospitality suite, where Christine's metabolism demanded a late night pizza, which Mireille one of the lovely programmers ordered for us. The three of us just sat around having drinks, eating late-night pizza and chatting. Really enjoyed myself, and now it's straight to bed. Christine and I want to keep up our tradition of going out for greasy spoon breakfast (and I now know where the place I was looking for this morning is) so we're going to do that, hit the record store, and then be cliches and go to the giant nickel, and then we're off to the screening of our film.

Dream in High Park: Romeo & Juliet

It's been years since I've been to Dream in High Park, and it's been awhile since I've seen a Shakespeare play. I promise you that I'm not saying this out of bias, but this was up there with some of the most interesting, engaging, and downright amazing Shakespeare that I've seen of my admittedly limited viewings. I was worried when I first heard of the play within-a-play aspect of the show, but it goes away quickly enough and then, really, it's all about the real play. Not to say that the setting of the show in a train station doesn't work, it actually allows for the doubling of roles, and simplicity of the sets, and makes that really smooth. There were some clever nods to the doubling within that as well.
For me the supporting stand-outs were Clinton Walker as Mercutio/Capulet, as well as Ron Kennell, who has the coveted role of the Nurse, who if you're familiar with the play, know that it always has the potential to be a scene stealer. He's fantastic in this. It would be so easy to overdo it, but he handles it just so.
And now to our Romeo and Juliet. Jeff Irving plays Romeo as a teenager, which Romeo is. And does it ever work. I mean this play doesn't work unless you buy into the romantic delusions, which really only make sense if these two are, in fact, love lorn teenagers, tired of being told what they can and can't do. He brings this really nice naivity to the role that I've never seen before, and he throw tantrums with the best of them. A pleasure to watch, truly. And then there is Christine Horne. For those of you who follow this with any regularity you know that I've worked with Christine, and I consider her a friend, so while there absolutely is some level of bias here, I don't care. She was brilliant. As I told her after the show, I loved seeing the fourteen year old Christine Horne come alive on stage. I could go on and on, but I'd rather you go see it for yourself.
It's only on for a few more days, but if you've been putting it off, get your ass to High Park before the 6th, or live to regret seeing one of the most exciting and engaging stagings of this show with some of the most talented performers in the city.
Loved it.

The lovely, Ms. Horne - Dora Winner!

Just wanted to give a big shout-out to the amazing and lovely Christine Horne for her Dora award for her performance in The Turn of the Screw, which I sadly did not see. (I suck. I know). If you want to check out more of Christine's theatrical work look no further than this summer's Can Stage's Romeo & Juliet, where she'll be playing Juliet. And, of course, you can see her in The Untitled Work of Paul Shepard, coming to a film festival near you this summer/fall/winter.

I'm using this photo without permission. That's just how I roll.

TUWOPS - Set Photos!

So I've been busy cutting away at the film, Anthony's been busy trying to get a sense of music and the licensing of it for the film as we're gearing up for a test screening next Friday that should prove useful in making the final tweaks in the film. Ideally we just want to know that the film is working for people outside of just the core group of people that have made it. Trying to invite a good mixture of people from different backgrounds, age groups, etc… just to get a general sense of how people react to it. I'll try to post the findings from the questionnaires (unless everyone hates it - then I'll just tell you that the screening was cancelled...)

So. Set photos. If you're a friend of mine on facebook you can see more, but here's a nice selection (in no particular order):


This was actually taken right before the last shot of the film. Anthony Grani (in the middle) is notorious for not getting in any of our production stills. Zach Melnick (on the right) is having a rare smile.


Kris Holden-Reid makes Paul Shepard's office his own.


Mary & Kris get mentally prepared for "the big scene".


The lovely Mary Krohnert gets no privacy whatsoever.


That's right - we were brave and let the actors hold the camera.


My one regret of the entire film shoot is that I was not there when this went down. I was there, however, when Aron Tager started busting a move to the Beastie Boys on a nearby ghetto-blaster.


Aron Tager = awesome.


On set at Montcrest School


God bless Paul Lee for actually owning this outfit and offering to wear it.



Kris & Zoie's beautiful dance. Alex Poch-Goldin will probably never admit it, but I think he secretly loved working the sound equipment.


Kris is trying to feel me up here, I believe. (I was trying to let him)


Kris loves mornings. Zoie looking snazzy.


Kris & Alex. The odd couple of our film.


Yes. Pat Mastroianni is in his underwear. And Tricia Braun finds it very funny.


Apparently Yvonne approved of the sound on that take...


Kris and Christine on set at Veritas (King Street East)


Christine Horne willingly making a fool out of herself for the sake of our film. Bit of trivia here: she's wearing the same wig she wore in "The Stone Angel"


We had a permit.... I think...


I love this as the classic Director & Cinematography shot. I look like I'm actually making decisions! (I'm probably pointing at the craft services table)


Mary and Kris on set in Withrow Park. The kids behind them were our extras for the day. They played soccer for about five hours straight (and then left to play an actual soccer game... they lost. Sorry kids - you must suffer for art!)


Hehe. This is the second day of shooting and we were short a head-set, so Jen and I were sharing, huddled up in the bush.

TUWOPS: Day Six

So I’ve been going on and on about how amazing our cast is. Today was no exception with Alex joining us again, and the addition of Rosemary, Timm, and Kate. But I’d be remise if I didn’t mention how amazing our crew is. Seriously, over the last six days we’ve gelled. Made up from a combination of people I’ve worked with in the past, recently graduated film students, and other recommended professionals, we’re a lean machine. It’s no small feat to shoot almost 12 pages in a single day, even if we are shooting documentary style. But in the last 6 days we’ve shot around 50 pages of the script without working insane days or really going into overtime at all or compromising what we were after. Through simply a combination of shooting style, and a phenomenal cast and crew, we’ve done what a lot of people told us we couldn’t.

So today saw us shooting all of the scenes with Paul’s family, including a big dinner scene – which are legendary for being nightmarish to shoot, but came off pretty wonderfully.

I’m attaching a shot from our over-night bookstore shoot on Thurs since I couldn’t get it up over the weekend. I’m really excited to start playing with this footage.

This week has us shooting for six days in a row. We’ve scheduled it in such a way that every other day has a short, simpler shoot following a longer, more intricate one. Still a few challenges laying ahead, but nothing we can’t handle. I look forward to them all.

TUWOPS: Day Five

So I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’m in a bit of a daze. I think that’s the natural state following an all-night shoot. I’m not much of a night-owl at this point in my life, and the hardest thing about a night-shoot is that you look around, you can see how tired people are. Hell, you can feel it – but you still have to get the goods. You can’t settle for a take that’s just ‘good’ because if you’re going to stay up all night and put yourself and everyone else through a little bit of hell, it has to be worth it in the end. If you make everyone pull an all-nighter and then you come out of it with sub-standard footage. Well then, you’re an all new kind of asshole.

Our entire crew were fantastic troopers who worked their butts off (as they always do). We had an almost entirely awesome set of back-ground performers. There seemed to be some confusion about how late we were going and some people were less pleased than others. Completely understandable. And so for all those that came out last night, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Besides the free food and a little bit of money, there’s no reason to be a background performer in an indie film in the middle of the night besides the love and art of film.

So last night we shot all of Sadie’s poetry scenes at McNally-Robinson, a book chain that’s just starting to creep into Ontario from out west. A huge beautiful store that were very lovely to us and gave us the location for practically nothing. Can’t wait to post some stills from last night’s shoot. You can see a glimmer of it in the photo above with myself and Christine. So the worst part of last night was that it was our last shooting day with Christine Horne. I was sad to see her go. What she brought to this film was nothing short of tremendous. I really can’t wait to start cutting her scenes together.

So that marks the end of our first week. We’ve got a break for two days before starting up again. Five days down. Ten to go. This week alone we shot a total of 23 of our 57 scenes, as well as roughly 28 pages (give or take). This week we shoot for 6 days straight – three of them are pretty big long days, three are pretty light. Hopefully everyone can recharge their batteries.

Also I think I keep neglecting to mention the wonderful Kris Holden-Reid, our Paul Shepard, who carries the weight of this film on his back. He’s a gentleman and a joy to work with, a true supporter and ally in this process. I look forward to the week ahead with him. There’s some interesting discoveries yet to make…

TUWOPS: Day Four

So today was a pretty relaxed day. We had two location moves, but otherwise it was a pretty simple shoot. For the most part the stills I’ll be showing are from a day previous. So the big scene we shot today won’t get into my editing system until tomorrow.

Which leads me to answering a question from a fan of this blog. They wanted to know about our gear and workflow. I can’t recall the exact camera, but the format we’re shooting on is HD-XDCAM, 24p (23.98). I’m editing the footage at high-res on an iMac 2.1 Ghz with 1.5 GB of ram (which I’m probably going to upgrade to 2.5 GB after realizing how cheap that is to upgrade). My DP has a faster computer sitting around collecting dust which I may borrow. I’m just getting slight stutters do to the high-quality of the footage, but nothing monumental. If I do borrow my DP’s tower then I’m going to have to figure out how to get monitors… it’ll all work out…

So for those unfamiliar the XDCAM discs work as both discs and tapes in how you can capture them, so it means that you can dig footage in actually faster than it would take to capture it like a tape. When a disc fills up we try to upload it to my hard-drive. I’m editing on Final Cut Pro, despite the fact that I’ve been using primarily Avid for the last few years.


So onto today’s shoot. Another day with Christine Horne, another fun arty section to shoot. Her character is a poet who knew Paul when they were both in art school and so there’s a piece in the film where we see a collaboration they did. I can’t lie. It’s been a blast to shoot it.

This other shot here is from yesterday’s shoot at a pool hall, which I was concerned about because it’s over four pages of dialogue but Kris and Christine chewed it up and spit it out like it weren’t no thang. You gotta love actors that can make you look good.



Today finished with a session in a recording booth getting down some phone calls, answering machines, etc… that I’ll need down the road. So a pretty relaxed day, which helps since tomorrow we’re shooting all night – so no updates till Friday I imagine.

I can’t finish this entry without giving a huge shout out to Carlos Diaz, one of the actors in our film. We had an issue with one of the extra’s casting agencies earlier this week (in which they basically never confirmed with us, and then so we had no extras – luckily some eager teens saved our butts and played soccer and tag all afternoon). However tomorrow is a scene where we MUST have extras. I put an ad on Facebook seeing if anyone had any ideas for people that might want to earn a little cash being an extra, and within minutes Carlos was all over it like a bar of soap in a prison. He even took his laptop to the set of the series he’s currently on, just to bust ass and help to make sure that we’d have extras for tomorrow night. Huge trooper and huge shout-out.

So my goal is to stay up late tonight and start playing with the footage. Have to condition my body for tomorrow’s night shoot. Should be a blast!

TUWOPS: Day Three

First off I want to apologize that I don’t have any photos to show you from today, we went late and it just didn’t work out. Lots were shot, so I’ll try to upload some teaser images then. But in the mean time here’s something we found while shooting under an over-pass. It’s kinda sorta really really sad:

So today had Christine Horne joining us. She’s playing Sadie, the poet, and this is her week to shoot all of her scenes. Christine is fearless. It could be that three days into this I’ve gotten into a stride, but it didn’t take much to get into a rhythm with her, but wow. Really great. What’s really nice is that all of the people Paul has relationships with in this film really bring a unique and necessary quality. So far we’ve played with three of those relationships, Alex, Sam, and Sadie. All unique, all wonderful, and all wonderfully played by our talented cast.

I’ve gotten quite a few people writing me about this blog (which is wonderfully flattering to know that people out there are actually reading it), and in the e-mails a lot of people want to know the “good and the bad.” The truth is that there isn’t really much bad. And we’ve got a laid back crew so any bad that creeps up gets dealt with pretty quickly. Our crew is a mixture of people that have and haven’t worked together before, so I think that there’s a nice rhythm being built within us as well.

I’m more than happy to go into greater detail about anything specific that people want to know.

Tomorrow – more Sadie and Paul. And to make up for a lack of set photos/stills, here’s a preview of another of Sadie’s books:

TUWOPS: Casting Update!

I told you this week would see us in a casting frenzy. Today saw the following very talented actors joining the cast:

Christine Horne

And if you live in the Toronto area try to check out Christine's Summerworks' show "Underneath" playing at the Factory Theatre!

Meghan Hoople


Shannon Jardine

1069 - The Stone Angel

I remember having to read this book in high school, and that's honestly all that I remember about it. I remember that the main characters name was Hagar and that her father bought a Stone Angel for her mother's grave. That's all I had going into this film. Which, sometimes, is a good thing. Gives you a little perspective.

Let's get something out of the way. The performances in this film are pretty solid. You can't say much about them. Christine Horne practically steals the film as Young Hagar, despite the fact that they let her play the character long past her age range. Not her fault though and she did a wonderful job. If they did it properly they would have had a third actress for the middle aged sections. Oh well.

Despite getting second billing in most advertisements I think Ellen Page has... maybe... five minutes of screen time in this. Maybe a few more. Am I a lover of Ellen Page? Yup. Should she have been in this film? Probably not. Again, she does wonders with her film, and I felt more for her character than I did for most of the others (which says something since I mentioned she's barely in it). First off she can't reign in her kind of old soul and the character she played seems far less intelligent than she's capable of showing. I won't go into too further detail in fear of ruining anything to do with the plot.

So my biggest beef with this film is that I never get a chance to care for these characters. We're running around all over the place, and it's great. I totally get a sense of what happened in her life, the tragedies, the lovely bits, but did I get a chance to care? No. Was that intentional? I don't know. Maybe. The only time we get close is when she's with Leo played by "Tell Me You Love Me"'s Luke Kirby. It's the only time I really felt two characters in this film really connected. There's some very small moments between Dylan Baker and Ellen Burstyn, but they're few and far between.

Entertaining enough, but I think the main problem is in that, and this film is not alone in this, is that it falls into that "well it was in the book" justification that a lot of adaptations try to cling to. After this conversation I started poking at some of the weak areas and a friend kept saying, "It was like that in the book" which just makes me think - if you love the book so much, why bother making a film of it? Leave it as it is. Unless you think you can enhance it, make it bigger and better, what's the point?