The Lesser Blessed

"The Lesser Blessed" takes a dark but somewhat conventional high school melodrama and sets it on an Indian reservation in Canada. It's a revealing portrait of lives on the edge of poverty (no casinos here, apparently) and the limiting, two-fisted world a sensitive soul world like Larry might never escape.

Director Anita Doron, who also wrote the script based on the novel by Richard Van Camp, has assembled a uniformly solid cast, starting with an impressive debut by Evans, whose brown eyes are both soulful and watchful. It's a performance that commands our attention and empathy.

This is a coming-of-age film, with a distinctly northern Canadian flavour, that will appeal to both moody adolescents and discerning adults.

Larry Sole (Joel Evans) is a loner native teen living in Canada's north. His oddness and his dark past has made him a constant target of the school bully. He is hopelessly infatuated with Juliet Hope (Chloe Rose). One day he's rescued from another bullying by Johnny Beck (Kiowa Gordon). The three high school kids would deal with intense issues that will change their lives.

Joel Evans does a lot of mumble acting. He's mostly a low energy character, with some explosive anger. It does fit the character, but he needs more intensity not just when he's fighting. Chole Rose and Kiowa Gordon also do a pretty good job. Anita Doron is the writer/director. The movie needs more pace. There are too many slow spots. It also need more style to emphasize the isolation and the culture of the north. It's understandable since this was filmed in Sudbury and not the extreme north. But the movie is missing that something that would otherwise make this a unique movie. It plays like an average teen melodrama with some dark intense issues.