Canadian

Review by David Baldwin

Suze (Michaela Watkins) has lost her purpose in life. Her daughter Brooke (Sara Waisglass) has just left home to go to school in Montreal, her ex-husband is having a child with his new wife, and all she has to look forward to is menopause. That is, until she is asked to care for Brooke’s injured ex-boyfriend Gage (Charlie Gillespie) who just attempted suicide and cannot be left alone.

Did I mention Suze cannot stand him?

It is not the most uplifting of pitches and it certainly is not shot in any unique way (though I will never not smile when I watch movies shot in Hamilton), but Suze is actually quite the wonderful little Canadian dramedy that is equally as funny as it is moving. I watched it late at night, assuming I would turn it off after 20-minutes and ended up watching right through until the end. It has a way of sucking you in and staying with you, even in its most cringiest of moments.

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Review by David Baldwin

Orah (Oyin Oladejo) is an illegal immigrant from Nigeria living and working in Toronto as a cab driver, although it’s more of a front for the money laundering scheme she is helping some nefarious characters do. Why does she do it? Because they have promised to bring her teenage son Lucky (who she has not seen since he was a baby) to Canada for a better life…at some point. When that time finally comes, the deal goes bad and Lucky ends up dead. Confused and distraught, Orah decides to take vengeance on her employers and anyone else involved in his death.

That may sound like a lot — this is before I even attempt to unpack the political malfeasance, the government corruption and Orah’s own dark past that all play into the film’s 95-minute running time — and all of that plotting and endless exposition gets in the way of the genuinely thrilling and unsettling picture Writer/Director Lonzo Nzekwe has concocted here. Part of it feels ripped from the headlines, and part of it feels like wish fulfillment. Wherever Nzekwe took his inspiration, he takes too long setting things into motion and once all the pieces are where they need to be, he never seems to spend enough time with Orah tearing down the system that took her son from her. I understand his hesitation in not wanting to dwell in something that grim and his deeper intention of telling a much larger story; I just wish it was better streamlined and did not get lost in the weeds so often.

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