Finishing it off strong...]
2015, d. James Klopko - The Movie Network
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| This poster is a little dramatic, and doesn't sell the film well at all. |
I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It's a remote city of a little over 100,000 people at the westernmost point of Lake Superior in Canada. It's the hub of an area of Canada known as "Northwestern Ontario", but despite being a "hub" it's still in many respects very isolated. I used to refer to it as being "8 hours from nowhere". An 8 hours drive east gets you to Sault Ste Marie, 8 hours west is Winnepeg, and 8 hours south is Minneapolis. (Canada is so vast we conversationally measure distance in travel time more often than Kilometers).
Growing up a bored kid, interested in artsy things like writing and drawing, comics and film, I found Thunder Bay to be a crippling place to live. If you're outdoorsy, which I'm not, there's no shortage of things to do all year round, but if you like music and culture, it was quite lacking in the 80's and 90's.
As a teen it seemed obvious that Thunder Bay was not on the map. We weren't represented in popular culture in any way (our biggest name export was Paul Shaffer - he even name checked T.Bay in a commercial he starred in - and there's always a bit of an ado around the fact that Neil Young lived there for a brief time), to the point that I can think of only two instances where I saw Thunder Bay in a scripted film or television show: Bruce McDonald's Highway 61 and the TV movie Calendar Girl, Cop Killer: The Bambi Bembenic Story. The former only references the town, really, while the latter did wind up in Thunder Bay where the fugitive Bembenic holed up, it did not shoot in town.
So Sleeping Giant is a bit of a big deal... an actual movie shot in the area, referring to the peninsular mesas that look like a giant laying on its back that is a core symbol of Thunder Bay. The city itself isn't used, and only one aerial shot of the city is actually seen. The film takes place a half hour outside of Thunder Bay in Shuniah, a remote, cottagey area I've never actually been to.
The film follows the lives of three teenage boys. Adam has just moved to the area, although his family had visited there frequently. Nate is a long time resident, living with his grandmother, and Riley is his cousin who visits every summer. Nate is a loudmouth, can't stop talking. He's a provoker, fond of goading, chiding, cussing people out...he would be offensive if any of it was expressed with any real emotion, but the truth is clear...he's bored. So he smokes, he drinks, he gets high, he eggs houses, sets off firecrackers, jumps off cliffs into superior, throws rocks at animal carcasses...all too typical teenage boy stuff. He says, half-jokingly (or perhaps not) that he wants to be an astrophysicist, but whether it's learning disability or attitude he's failed math twice and he's all too aware of how far out of reach any of his dreams are. Riley quite happily tags along with his cousin, and seems to have no real desire to do the things they get into, but no reticence either. Adam is quiet, gentle, and not really into most, if any of Nate's shenanigans, but he and Riley made fast friends, and, well, he's bored so he'll follow them anywhere.
Each of the three boys shares equal screen time, though I would say Adam gets a bit more of the focus than Riley or Nate. There's a lot unsaid in the film, but also a lot inferred. Adam is a confused kid, having learned that his father is having an affair he becomes somewhat obsessed with his dad's mistress, and likewise he obviously has strong feelings for Riley that he doesn't quite understand. When Riley starts dating Adam's long-time friend Taylor, a girl both his dad and friend are trying to push him into doing something more with, he doesn't know how to feel. He's angry and hurt by both of them, though clearly it's Riley he's longing for more with.
This isn't a story of kids in Thunder Bay, because they aren't in town. There's no real landmarking happening, so I was never pulled out of the movie, though it really did take the first hour for the drama to escalate into something quite engaging and meaningful. The deliberate pace of the opening hour works well to establish the boredom and the friends-by-proximity nature of remote living. Even if you don't like someone, even if you wouldn't consider them a true friend, you still hang out with them because they're there, and better to spend time with a shitty person than be alone with yourself too long, right?
The film captures that essential feeling of isolation, of remoteness, and what it's like to grow up in it. Without things to do, without structure or engagement, and without exposure to other ways of life, it's easy to get self-destructive. Nate is the most self destructive, because he's always where he is. Riley escapes back to his own life when summer is over, while Adam is from elsewhere...he's seen another life. Living with his grandmother it's too easy to interpret Nate's troubles stemming from a lack of parental guidance ("If I had a kid like me..." he muses).
Sleeping Giant is not a unique film, in the sense that there's been dozens upon dozens of indie films about teenage boys coming of age over a summer, and it's Northwestern Ontario-ness is sadly only slightly prevalent (as I think the script is trying to be more broadly relatable by not invoking too much local flavour) but it's a remarkably well acted film, and it has a sincere, grounded depth to it that a lot of other films of its kind ignore in favour of more Hollywood-like showy and manipulative character and plot turns. If you can get past the fact that teenagers really, really suck, then it's a great film that gets into some of the reasons why they suck to much.
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PLUG
I should note that an old friend has written a new book set in Thunder Bay, crossing dual timelines of 1994 and 2004. To be reductive, it's a Canadian High Fidelity (High Fidelity being my favourite book, that's high praise indeed). It's called To Me You Seem Giant by Greg Rhyno. I'm only one and a half chapters in, but I'm already right into it.Quote:
You know that song Neil Young sings about a town in North Ontario and how all his changes happened there? I always wanted that song to be about Thunder Bay, but it's not. Thunder Bay isn't the kind of place you write a song about.Now, this is an awesome statement, because it's so true. Except for the fact that Rhyno has written songs about Thunder Bay with The Parkas and now a book. So it's filled with irony at the same time. I love it.
Go get it.
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