Emile

This is definitely a character based movie. As such it's never a total waste to watch Ian McKellan work - playing someone trying to come to terms with the difficulties and poor choices in his past, and Deborah Unger truly nails her character - a woman who is bruised and bitter but determined not to give up on life. It's always a treat to see a movie filmed in Canada that doesn't pretend to be somewhere else. Alas the resolution seemed a little too easy and contrived, and I found the soundtrack monotonous and intrusive.

The title character, a retired professor played by Sir Ian McKellen, must come to terms with his past when he returns to Canada for a visit. Emile grew up with two brothers on a farm in Saskatchewan. He left to study in Britain 40 years earlier and never looked back. Until now. Invited to Victoria (British Columbia) to accept an honorary degree from UVic, he stays at the home of his troubled niece, Nadia (Deborah Kara Unger). Recently divorced and living with her rebellious ten year old daughter, Maria (Theo Crane), Nadia still smolders with resentment because Uncle Emile failed to adopt her following the sudden death of her parents. She spent her girlhood in an orphanage and the experience has left a permanent scar on her psyche.

"You seem like a pretty nice guy and I'm going to try to like you. But I don't trust people and you did that to me," she tells him quietly. "Now I'm sure you had your reasons but I just want you to know there was a little girl waiting for you a long time ago. And you left her. Waiting."

That's a haunting image to deal with but Emile also has to confront his feelings of guilt over deserting his two brothers, now deceased, both of whom we meet in flashback scenes: Freddy (Chris William Smith), fragile, artistic, a bit of a dreamer, slowly withering under cruel, insensitive treatment at the hands of older brother, Carl (Tygh Runyan).

Writer/director Carl Bessai (Lola) has McKellen as Emile relive these memories as the old man he is rather than cast an actor to play a younger version of the character in flashback scenes. "I think that's important because the past for him is subjective," Bessai explains on the DVD commentary track. "It is a memory that is infused with who he is right now." Although this may prove confusing for some viewers I thought it was a bold move and well presented visually through artful use of transition shots and doctored cinematography.

The film makes effective use of Victoria locations to add atmosphere, mood and emotional context to key scenes: Emile and Maria chatting on a bench in the Inner Harbour with the Empress Hotel in the background; a blustery walk along Dallas Road; Emile receiving his honorary degree at University of Victoria's Convocation Hall (with 200 extras in attendance.) McKellen turns in a masterful performance, Ms. Unger (Crash) is hypnotically watchable as always and the complex emotional dynamic between their two characters is well worked out. Young Miss Crane, in only her second film, displays a wonderfully natural screen presence. Fans of traditional Hollywood dramas should be warned. As Bessai explains on the DVD, this is not a movie about big dramatic moments, "it's the little things that create the tensions between people, that make them recognizably human." Works for me.

You are well into the second quarter of this film before you can figure out just who is who. The frequent flashbacks, done in a style that would work better on a stage than on the screen, are confusing until you figure out what is happening. Nevertheless it is a warm picture with a good cast and a straightforward plot that generates some very human moments. At least it's a film --- and a reasonably decent one --- that shows Canada as Canada and not disguised as a stand-in for some place in the US. It's obviously done on a low budget with an unknown cast but that does not have a heavy impact on quality. There is some young talent here on both sides of the camera. Not a great film, but not a bad one either.

In the second part of a twin bill for Ian McKellen, he stars with Deborah Kara Unger in a compelling drama about a man who goes back home after 40 years and has to deal with the past he left behind.

In contrast to Cold Comfort Farm, in which McKellan played a small role, this movie is all about him. He goes back and forth from the present to his life in Canada 40 years before. He even engages in conversations with his brothers, who appear in the present. he works to resolve his crisis and, with the help of 10-year-old Theo Crane, is able to come to a comfortable conclusion.

For those of us who leave home and return, there is a lot of things familiar in this very good movie.

Emile is an upper-class British man, a university professor who just retired. But also a man who has a past to deal with. Four decades ago he was a young farmer in Saskatchewan, living with his two brothers on the farm he was born. Their parents died young, making them responsible too soon of the family's farm.

The youngest brother wanted to be a writer, Emile wanted to be a scientist. They both didn't really care about the farm, which was unacceptable for their older brother for whom it was their fate. Therefore he became angry and violent, continuously putting them under pressure.

Emile found his way out with a scholarship to study in England, a premeditated way to abandon them and never look back. A country thousands of miles away to start all over, and forget. He only came back once ten years after when his two brother died to rent up the farm, learning he was the only family left of his young niece and left her in an orphanage without even seeing her. He went back alone to England and never came back.

Forty years after he first left, he has to go back for a second time, to receive a degree from a Canadian university. And now that he's an old man, he feels it's his last chance to make peace with his past and his niece...

Emile is a wonderful story about terrible choices we sometimes have to make. About unforgivable wounds you have to find a way to forgive.

During the whole movie there's a terrible tension between Emile and his niece. They both have a terrible need to know each other, and a terrible need to talk about the past, and you see them finding their way through, step by step.

Every moment has its emotion, every actor is brilliant, every line is thoughtful. You just let yourself go in the movie and finish it to think about yourself, about life, about your own choices. About things you've done and may need to be forgiven for. A true movie my friends