Wilby Wonderful (2004)

terrible... so disappointed.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

While this movie isn't quite as slow as Warhol's Empire, the filmmaker gave that a good try. There was potential in some of the situations, but they came to nothing. I didn't care. I found myself rooting for the ?main character to die, so something, at least, would happen. By the time I began fast forwarding at minute 40, I realized nothing could make me care. I watched this for free, but I still wanted my money back.Not so bad it's good, unfortunately. Just dull.Is this ten lines? Not every movie deserves that many.

Wilby is a fictional island off Nova Scotia, the sort of rugged, resorty place where the islanders don't always think so much of the mainlanders who come to look around and sometimes stay forever. One of the latter, embroiled in small-town scandal, has decided to end it all, but people—motel chambermaid, hyperactive realtor, inquisitive guy in overalls—keep getting in his way. This Canadian ensemble dramedy, available on streaming Netflix, doesn't make the most of its first-rate cast (Paul Gross of "Sling and Arrows," Sandra Oh, Ellen Page, the late Maury Chaykin—guess Molly Parker was already busy with "Deadwood"), and the tone is oddly inconsistent. The various subplots mix (literal) gallows humor and sitcom shtick with scenes of everyday turmoil reminiscent of "Parenthood" (especially so when jangly alt-rock swells up on the soundtrack). Cape Breton homeboy Daniel MacIvor tries to hold it all together with a goofy backstory about a victimless-crime wave and a shady land deal, but that just gets in the way of the uniformly fine performances and the few well-set-up punchlines (Rebecca Jenkins's lusty single mom hits on Duck MacDonald, the overalls guy, and quite a while later, you get why that's funny). Of the lesser-known cast members, Callum Keith Rennie does well as Duck, a nontraditional stand-in for Clarence the Angel, and Jenkins really connects, despite her underwritten character, as a storm-battered islander who's come home to start a new life. Long story short, Wilby may be wonderful, but "Wilby Wonderful" is merely watchable. (Btw—the title was originally supposed to be something else, which would have deprived wiseguy reviewers of this obvious cheap shot.) If you've never seen "Slings and Arrows," available on disk from N'flix and one of the best TV series ever, you shd def'ly give it a look

This web-of-life drama with a dark comedic edge takes place in a small town on the fictional island of Wilby, somewhere off the coast of Nova Scotia. Here we get to know quite a few people, beginning with Dan Jarvis (James Allodi), a video store owner whose wife has just left him. His exquisite despair, agitation and dead serious suicidal impulses are occasioned not only by this loss but, more fundamentally, by the fact that he is being exposed, against his wishes, as a gay man, not a social status often sought in this tight little conservative village.Jarvis's forced "outing" is part of a more sweeping attack on regular gatherings of homosexuals and drug users at a waterfront park. Turns out that developers are behind the exposes. They're almost drooling in anticipation of establishing a destination golf club with surrounding upscale houses on the now public park land, once they succeed in convincing the townsfolk that the only sure way to keep unsavory characters from corrupting their young people and way of life is to get rid of that park, i.e., by selling it to them, and for a song at that.We also meet Buddy French (Paul Gross), a straight arrow local cop, and his tightly wound wife Carol (Sandra Oh), who has gotten herself into a chronic dither chasing brass rings in the world of real estate sales. Then there is Sandy Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins), the faded sex queen and mother of teenage daughter Emily (Ellen Page), whom Sandy worries will follow in her own pathetic footsteps.Rounding out the group of major players in this drama are Wilby's Mayor, Brent Fisher (Maury Chaykin), whose porcine joviality seems overdone, perhaps to cover less seemly activities, and the pivotal character Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), an Everyman clad perpetually in overalls, whose gentle manner and near omnipresence suggest that he's a sort of guardian angel placed among these humans to bail them out of trouble. In smaller roles, there's also Irene (Mary Ellen MacLean), a first rate gossip, and Buddy's police partner, Stan (played by the film's writer-director, Daniel McIvor), whose conduct is sometimes nefarious.I take the trouble to mention all of these people because the film is really more a series of character sketches than a narrative, and because the acting is, with perhaps one exception, uniformly fine. For some viewers, the exception may be Sandra Oh's over-the-top frenzied behavior during much of the film, though certainly there are ambitious control freaks out there in the real world who carry on like she does. (Incidentally, the beauty of Ms. Oh's face is captured stunningly here by DP Rudolf Blahacek, especially in profile in a scene shot while she is driving.)Some viewers might also wonder whether James Allodi's compulsive suicidal behavior as the deeply suffering Dan Jarvis is also over the top. He keeps making good faith efforts to end his life that are thwarted, sometimes in ways that make you laugh even when your intentions are otherwise. In this darkly funny depiction, MacIvor seems to have borrowed from the drollery of Bud Cort's habitual suicidal poses in "Harold and Maude."We viewers can also easily see the pain in Jarvis's face and wonder how so many of the town citizens can fail to notice or respond to him. Fact is that in real life this is common. Often people are either too self absorbed or otherwise preoccupied to see pain in others. Or if they do, they gloss over it because they are too busy or are reluctant to intrude, to mind another person's business.The film offers a wonderful quote from Mark Twain, delivered by Buddy French to Mayor Fisher: "Golf: A good walk ruined." "Wilby" was produced not by Canada's National Film Board, the source of so many wonderful movies from that country, but jointly by the provincial film boards of Nova Scotia and Ontario. The location for the film is actually not an island at all, but rather the town of Shelburne, pop. 2,000, on the southwest coast of the Nova Scotian mainland.) "Wilby" is unlikely to get wide U. S. distribution, and that is unfortunate, because it's a little gem of a movie. My rating: 8/10 (B+). (Seen on 11/28/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

What an enjoyable movie. Saw it at the Stony Brook Film Festival and was disappointed to hear it has gone straight to video. With so much crap out there, there is surely a place for a movie like this. Unfortunately, there are no special effects, or in your face sex and violence. The story makes sense, the loose ends are tied up and the characters are real. In fact, one of the few known faces, to me, was Sandra Oh and she was nearly a distraction, because she is so familiar. Everyone else seemed more real. This movie was made by the same guy who made "Marion Bridge" another Canadian movie set in Cape Breton and starring, if that's the right word, the delightful Molly Parker. Bravo John McIvor and everyone involved in this thoroughly entertaining movie. You'd have been pleased at the ovation at the end of the screening.