The flicks they’re making or speaking about in motion pictures about motion pictures usually seem like they’re not superb motion pictures. In “The Fall Guy,” they’re making a sci-fi journey known as “Metalstorm” that appears like a big-budget bomb. In Robert Altman’s “The Participant,” the studio exec performed by Tim Robbins develops a authorized thriller, “Habeas Corpus,” which is able to ultimately solid Julia Roberts within the lead. Among the many fictional movies tucked into the Roberts-starring “Notting Hill” is the area epic “Double Helix.” All these movies seem like fairly horrible.
That additionally seems to be the case with the documentary-within-the-movie in Paul Schrader’s unusual and convoluted and maddeningly opaque “Oh, Canada.” Greater than 40 years after Schrader and Richard Gere teamed up for “American Gigolo,” director and star are reunited for an experimental biopic about an acclaimed, fictional documentary filmmaker named Leonard Fife, who’s terminally unwell and within the remaining days of his life agrees to have the cameras turned on him. From what we will inform, this “film” feels prefer it’ll be extra on the extent of a dullish TV newsmagazine profile than a full-fledged documentary.
Primarily based on the novel “Foregone” by Russell Banks (Schrader beforehand tailored Banks’ “Affliction” for a 1997 movie starring Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek), “Oh, Canada” has present-day scenes set in Fife’s paneled and tastefully appointed Montreal mansion, the place he has agreed to be interviewed by an Oscar-winning, husband-and-wife crew of filmmakers (Michael Imperioli and Victoria Hill, each terrific) who’re his former college students. Fife has put no restrictions on the interview, aside from to insist that his spouse Emma (Uma Thurman), who was in opposition to this concept within the first place, be within the room with him. Talking straight into the digicam, Fife cajoles and belittles Imperioli’s Malcolm, who’s directing the documentary, complains to Emma concerning the grilling he’s receiving, and is a most unreliable narrator of his personal life. (Little doubt the ache medicines Fife is taking are contributing to his confusion.)
In flashbacks, Jacob Elordi performs the youthful Fife, and that’s a critical case of miscasting. Not that it must be a lookalike contest, however the proficient and charismatic Elordi is an effective seven or eight inches taller than Gere, and he does a form of half-hearted imitation that by no means fairly resonates, as we study that Fife was a brooding, self-involved, irresponsible hedonist who all the time places himself first. (The story is form of like “All That Jazz,” with out the Ben Vereen Issue.)
Within the late Nineteen Sixties, Fife was in his 20s and an aspiring author who was married with an toddler son (this was already his second marriage) and was about to take a educating job in Vermont when he ghosted his household. After faking a horrific, stereotype-ridden homosexual id to delay his draft into the Military and a doable tour of responsibility in Vietnam, Fife heads to Canada. Is it an act of brave protest heroism, or a coward fleeing his duties? No matter Fife’s motivations for fleeing, it’s clear that he wasn’t making some grand assertion on the time. He simply wasn’t able to develop up, spouse and youngster be damned.
Settling right into a bohemian life-style that features quite a few affairs, Fife ultimately turns his curiosity to filmmaking, changing into one thing of a nationwide Canadian treasure for his hard-hitting documentaries shining a highlight on injustice. (The snippets of Fife’s documentaries-within-the-documentary-within-this-movie seem like one thing out of a Christopher Visitor satire.)
Author-director Schrader, a heavyweight who wrote “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” and in recent times has written and directed a knockout trio of movies in “First Reformed,” “The Card Counter” and “Master Gardener,” has lengthy been fascinated with themes of redemption, and “Oh, Canada” feels virtually like a semi-autobiographical confession. There are some moments of profound perception, and the camerawork is fashionable and inventive, however that is such an unnecessarily complicated story. At instances, the narration shifts to Fife’s grown son (Zach Shaffer), whom he hasn’t spoken to in 30 years. In sure flashback scenes, Gere quite than Elordi performs the youthful Fife. There’s additionally a weird interlude through which Fife has an assignation together with his artist good friend’s spouse Gloria, who’s performed by … Uma Thurman.
One supposes these gimmicks are supposed for instance how Fife’s recollections are betraying him in his remaining days. The issue with that’s the viewer isn’t fully certain that what we’re seeing is basically true, or a jumbled and incorrect model of occasions. Both approach, the documentary they’re making about Leonard Fife doesn’t seem like something we’d wish to watch.
