[Reviews] Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Title:Wilby Wonderful
Year: 2004
Director: Daniel MacIvor
Rating: Canada 14a
Genre: Comedy
Length: 99Min.
Country/Language: Canada/USA/English
Starring: James Allodi, Maury Chaykin, Paul Gross, Rebecca Jenkins, Sandra Oh, Ellen Page, Callum Keith Rennie, Daniel MacIvor, and others.
Brief Synopsis: A day-in-the-life dark comedy concerning a group of islanders, their respective secrets, and one man's plan to kill himself quietly.
Reviewer Name: Maura/gerlnosebroke
Plot: Plot? There was a plot?!
Acting: I believe everyone played their respective roles quite well.
Direction: I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with whoever decided to classify this movie as a (dark) comedy. It was ironic and coincidental and at times awkward, but not comical. I feel like the writer/director really wanted it to be slightly humorous in a witty sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of way so that if you read the screenplay during these ironic, coincidental, etc.. types of moments the reader would perhaps smile and think "heh!", but unfortunately these moments didn't transcribe this way on camera. And that would have been fine and I think Daniel MacIvor should have just let the dark comedy thing drop and stick with the drama that the film was turning out to be. However, it felt like he kept trying to push a humorous aspect into the film, so that in a scene towards the end that would have been funny if the film had been able to achieve the tongue-in-cheek feel, instead of laughing, I just got really upset with Sandra Oh's character. I hope all of that makes sense...it's rather hard to talk about it without spoiling the film.
Highlights: This film was overwhelmingly Canadian.
Lowlights: MacIvor fell into the pit of making a-day-in-the-life film...there was no point to it. Wait, I take that back. There was that overdone, so cliche, theme of what its like to live in small town, um, Canada. OK, I get it...everybody's all up in everybody's business in small towns. So yeah, cool?
Overall Synopsis: BORING! AND DISCONNECTED!
Letter Rating: D