Oh, Canada
Synopsis: An ailing film documentarian looks back on his career and relationships.
Good actors do not a good movie make. Does that make sense? How about in Yoda-speak…Good actors you have, bad movie you make.
Consider Oh, Canada starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Jacob Elordi and Michael Imperioli. The movie is based on Russell Banks’ book “Foregone.” The subject is a man who evaded the Vietnam draft back in the 1960’s by crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada. He becomes a celebrated documentary filmmaker. I thought the movie might have something to say about the possibilities of finding truth, beauty and freedom in the Great North. Nope…
Instead, the movie is about a selfish a-hole reflecting on his selfish a-hole life. Richard Gere plays said a-hole, Leonard “Leo” Fife who is dying of cancer. We see a flashback where his wife asks what kind of cancer? He replies,” Not the good kind.” I bet patients whose doctors diagnose them with “the good kind” of cancer are relieved.
Against his wife Emma’s wishes, Leo allows documentarians Malcolm (Michael Imperioli) and Diana (Victoria Hill) to interview him in the library of his and Emma’s big house in Montreal.
Leo’s wife, also his producing partner, is played by Uma Thurman. Her character frets that the experience will be too tiring for Leo. She also seems to be afraid of what she might hear. She totally buys into Leo as a Great Man who–if he’s done bad –it’s okay because his work is legendary. The role is fairly thankless. She jumps up periodically and shouts He’s tired! or busies herself taking sandwich orders from the documentarians and their production assistant Sloan (Penelope Mitchell). We hear Leo’s take on Sloan in a voiceover; that she’s desirable and he figures Malcolm is sleeping with her in spite of the forty-year age difference and his relationship with Diana. Imperioli’s role pales in comparison to the work he got to do in The White Lotus/3rd season, as a sex-addicted rich LA vacationer. Anyway…
The documentarians want to hear about Leo’s muckraking movies. He’s made films about Agent Orange use, abuse of Indigenous children at boarding schools, clubbing of baby seals and so forth.
But Leo wants to talk about the many people he has failed along the way. Uma’s Emma protests that he’s confused, but Gere hollers that he can only tell the truth when the camera is on. For no reason we can discern, he seems to dislike Malcolm. He refers to him and his wife Diana as ‘The Canadian Ken Burns’. And he certainly doesn’t say it as a compliment. Another time he wants Malcolm out of his sight line, bellowing that he is a fraud.
Leo does, however, address a key point in his legacy: crossing over into Canada from the United States to dodge the draft in 1968. Is it primarily a political act as his admirers see it? We’ll have to wait for some answers because Leo has other things on his mind…
We go back in time to when Leo was Jacob Elordi; tall, mustached and walking like Elvis. (Maybe he made this right after filming Priscilla.) He does sound just like Richard Gere as Leo as he ponders Art.
Leo has earned a doctorate and when we meet him with wife #2, he’s set to accept a professorship at a Vermont college. In a theatrical conceit, sometimes Gere appears as young Leo in 1960’s flashbacks. But, thankfully, it’s usually Jacob Elordi with his considerable cinematic appeal. All young Leo has to do is appear in a room and the women are all over him.
One of the women who is thirsty for him in a flashback is Uma Thurman in a dark wig. Maybe this means that Leo can’t remember what she looked like. In another scene, young Leo dances with the woman who will be his first wife. She’s played by the production assistant actor in a cute blond pixie wig. I guess Leo couldn’t remember her face either. After all, that was many years and a few wives ago.
Oh, Canada is like walking down a hotel corridor and opening doors at random. Behind one door might be young Leo at a physical for military service. Open the next door and he’s stealing from an employer. Another door might reveal him getting a hand job from his friend’s wife. Fine, he’s a young guy taking advantage of looking like Jacob Elordi to have lots of sex. But I drew the line at lying about where he went on a supposedly “On the Road”esque journey in his youth. I can’t remember if that was before or after he abandoned his offspring.
One risible scene has Leo teaching a class on documentary photography to a small group. This might be in the 80’s? Gere as prof has a fuller head of hair and weird de-aging makeup that makes him resemble The X-Files’ David Duchovny. Uma is a student. She conveys her younger-age Emma by wearing a jean jacket (Calvin Klein?) and speaking in a whispery, awestruck voice to Leo. The documentarian characters, Malcolm and Diana, are also in class; but they look to be in late middle age. Wouldn’t they be busy making films instead of being forever-protégées? To make matters worse, ick is added by the revelation that Leo is not ethically opposed to having sexual relations with his women students.
Ugh, the only things that made the movie barely tolerable were the Phosphorescent songs playing during young Leo scenes and the pastoral views of New York State.
Finally! It bothered me that the name of the beautiful, functioning democracy of Canada had its name invoked for drecky Oh, Canada.
Movie Loon 