44/31
Based on the novel Foregone by Russell Banks
Line of Events
Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand conscientious objectors and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid service in Vietnam, reveals all his secrets to demythologize his mythical life. This is the second time Paul Schrader has directed one of Banks’ novels for the screen, following his adaptation of Verijäljet (1997).
Quoted in Film Junk Podcast: Episode 961: In Violent Nature + TIFF 2024 (2024)
It is a drama about accidental conscientious objectors between Virginia and Montreal in the late 1960s and 2023. Leo Fife (Jacob Elordi/Richard Gere) is a famous left-wing documentary filmmaker in Canada who is dying of cancer in 2023.
But he insists that his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), also a former student, be present at the filming
Leo has two former students, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli) and Diana (Victoria Hill), who interview him for a CBC documentary about his life. We soon learn that the myth of Leo’s past as a Vietnam War resister and free-spirited Cuban traveler is different from Leo’s current (real?) truth.
We learn that Leo’s escape to Canada didn’t live up to the myth
Leo is somewhat confused, but the story he tells is of a superficial, aimless life that has caused much suffering to others, including his two ex-wives Amy (Penelope Mitchell) and Alicia (Kristine Froseth) and son Cornel (Zach Shaffer). Oh, Canada is a strange movie in many ways, but it tells a compelling story about the myths we all create about ourselves.
Uma Thurman manages to portray Emma, who initially resists Leo’s revelation of the truth, but then tacitly accepts it
Paul Schrader’s use of multiple actors in multiple roles is confusing and unnecessary, but Richard Gere does a great job trying to tell the truth to a woman with which he spent 30 years. “Oh, Canada” is not an evasion of the Vietnam War; instead, it’s a drama about confronting one’s own myths.
(0)
