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WHOLE NEW THING
Directed by: Amnon Buchbinder.
Produced by: Kelly Bray & Camelia Frieberg.
Written by: Amnon Buchbinder & Daniel MacIvor.
Cinematography by: Christopher Ball.
Edited by: Angela Baker.
Music by: David Buchbinder.
Released by: Picture This! Entertainment.
Country of Origin: Canada. 92 min. Not Rated.
With: Aaron Webber, Robert Joy, Rebecca Jenkins & Daniel MacIvor.

This is a coming of age film for all ages because, well, everyone here comes of age. It’s like a Rose Troche (Go Fish) script with all the satire swapped for sentimentality. A mother learns to accept her life after years of mounting frustration. A husband learns he has to either show his love for his family or he could lose them. A teacher learns to stop blowing guys at rest stops and work a little harder in a relationship.

And what’s a Bildungsroman without an angst-riddled teenager who learns to accept himself? Raised by hippies, Emerson (Aaron Webber), named after Ralph Waldo, bears signs of bisexuality but doesn’t acknowledge it yet. Home-schooled all his life and sheltered in his parent’s straw bale home of pot fumes and intellectualism out in the Nova Scotia woods, he doesn’t stand a chance of blending in at school. Scrawny and with long, shaggy hair, the soft-spoken 13-year-old has already written a novel. Sure enough, the class bullies target him.

But it doesn’t take long for Emerson to discover that being the weird kid wielding a clever, intelligent tongue isn’t the worst attribute to flaunt. He even suggests to his English teacher, Don Grant (Daniel MacIvor, who also cowrote the film) that the class study Shakespeare, and Emerson takes As You Like It’s Rosalind’s exultation on love to heart, becoming infatuated with his forty-something instructor. Don refuses his advancements, but relishes in an awkward, sexualized friendship with his adoring student while avoiding an unresolved relationship with a former lover.

Overall, it’s a pretty obvious film. You can guess what every storyline will be and how each one will end within the first five minutes. The characters, even though they are all either in the same family or romantically linked with each other, never seem to interact that much. However, the film’s intrepid depiction of teenage sexuality recalls last year’s 12 and Holding. Emerson, like that film’s snooping teen, breaks and enters into the home of his infatuation. And at one point, he privately strikes a pose copied from a gay porn mag.

Worth mentioning as well are two standout performances, both rooted in subtlety. MacIvor plays Emerson’s teacher Don with such natural ease that you almost believe he’s playing himself. And Robert Joy imbues Emerson’s father, Rog, with a brooding quiet isolation that works perfectly with his character’s depression and guarded emotions. Zachary Jones
April 6, 2007