Certificate: TBC

Running Time: 91 mins

UK Distributor: TBC

UK Release Date: TBC

REVIEWED AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024

WHO’S IN OH, CANADA?

Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Victoria Hill, Michael Imperioli, Penelope Mitchell, Kristine Froseth, Zach Shaffer

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Paul Schrader (director, writer), Tiffany Boyle, David Gonzales, Meghan Hanlon, Scott LaStaiti and Luisa Law (producers), Phosphorescent (composer), Andrew Wonder (cinematographer), Benjamin Rodriguez Jr. (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A dying filmmaker (Gere) gives his final on-screen testimony about his past…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON OH, CANADA?

The last time that Richard Gere teamed with writer-director Paul Schrader, he bared all (in more than one sense of the phrase) as the titular American Gigolo in the filmmaker’s erotically charged thriller. Nearly forty-five years later, both Gere and Schrader reunite for Oh, Canada, in which the actor spends most of his screentime in a delirious and decrepit state, frequently stumbling on his own words and relying on a nurse to help him onto the toilet. Needless to say, this is not American Gigolo 2.

But Schrader’s latest film also isn’t a particularly strong one. Like its protagonist, it meanders to an unhealthy degree, is strangely confused about itself, and leaves the audience knowing far less about its own subject than they did going in. This really is Old Man Yells At Cloud: The Movie, which perhaps gives this movie more entertainment value than it actually has.

The film’s framing device takes place in the home of cancer-ridden writer and filmmaker Leonard Fife (Gere), who has agreed to record one final interview with fellow filmmaker, and former student, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli). With his wife Emma (Uma Thurman) watching from the side, Fife begins recalling how he, as a younger man (portrayed in flashbacks by Jacob Elordi), fled from the United States to Canada after avoiding the draft for the Vietnam War. However, it soon becomes apparent that Fife is struggling to piece together the events of his life in his own head, leading to a disjointed narrative that nobody, least of all himself, and especially not the audience, can make heads or tails of.

Fife is very much an unreliable narrator, and that is largely why Oh, Canada ultimately doesn’t work. Gere is good in the film, and he gives solid curmudgeon under some unappealing makeup, but hearing this old man ramble inconsistently for most of the movie gets tiresome very quickly, especially when it becomes very apparent that there is not much of a story being told by this character. After starting off fairly on point, he eventually devolves into an endless display of senile behaviour, saying and remembering a lot of things that don’t make much sense, or have very little to do with the topic at hand. It is all a load of build-up towards nothing, as you keep waiting for something to happen that connects all the fragmented flashbacks we keep getting, only for that something to never come.

For whatever reason, Schrader keeps his audience at a fair distance from the very person whose life story we are meant to be watching, which only makes the storytelling far more frustrating. The filmmaker drip-feeds little bits of information about his protagonist throughout, including his love affairs with numerous women, as well as how he originally got into the filmmaking business, but these are not enough to create a full idea of who Leonard Fife actually is, or why the viewer should care about his life. As with his recent string of deeply flawed protagonists, such as Ethan Hawke in First Reformed and Joel Edgerton in Master Gardener, Schrader certainly seems to know his protagonist inside and out, but there’s rarely a point where the viewer feels like they know just as much as he does. This makes it much harder to form a reasonable connection with this character or the narrative unfolding around him, since nowhere near enough is revealed about him that makes him worthy of your time or attention.

In parts, you can see some inspiration in Schrader’s approach. Sometimes, both versions of the main character – the older Richard Gere one, and the younger Jacob Elordi one – blend together within the same flashback, creating an interesting visual that correlates the actors’ synchronised approach to their shared protagonist. Unfortunately, such things are rare and do not automatically make Oh, Canada a better film. It is predominantly a confused, passionless and all-around uninteresting film about an old man grumbling and complaining his way through an uneventful 91 minutes, hence the “Old Man Yells At Cloud: The Movie” label I gave it earlier.

Honestly, you can get more enjoyment out of all the instances of that Simpsons meme than you would from the entirety of this movie.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Oh, Canada is a frustratingly uneventful attempt to dive into the soul of an unreliable protagonist, whom filmmaker Paul Schrader is strangely unwilling to share enough about with his audience to get them to care about his curmudgeonly behaviour.

It’s too early for cinema showtimes, but watch this space!