Movie Review - Jason Anderson - Globe and Mail
The wry, engaging story of one adolescent's tempestuous coming of age in rural Nova Scotia, Whole New Thing also serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of home schooling. While some children are well-served by the practice, Emerson (Aaron Webber) has turned out to be advanced in some aspects and stunted in others. Then again, it's a wonder that this 13-year-old isn't more screwed up given his parents' eccentricities. Embittered by his failure to fix the world, Rog (Robert Joy) is an ecologically minded inventor with a professional interest in human feces. His wife Kaya (Rebecca Jenkins) is a free spirit who doesn't see the harm in letting Emerson grow his hair long and take a few tokes off a joint. Both parents are oddly proud when Emerson begins having wet dreams, though Dad recommends masturbation so as to cut down the number of stained sheets, noting that "too much laundry is bad for the environment."
Alas, the family that takes naked saunas together does not always stay together. Impressed that her son has already written a novel -- a gigantic, Tolkien-like tome named The Fire of Evermore -- but fearing that he's slipping behind in math, Kaya enrolls Emerson in a local public school. Most of the other students are hostile to this long-haired know-it-all. Having acquired his father's arrogance, Emerson holds the yokels in contempt but still makes a connection with his English teacher, Don Grant (Daniel MacIvor), a man whose sole extracurricular activity seems to be cruising for anonymous sex in a park washroom. Emerson inspires Don to challenge his students more and the class is soon discovering the wonders of As You Like It. The friendship between student and teacher takes a more complicated turn when Emerson starts writing Don courtly love poems. Things grow equally fraught at home when Kaya has an affair with a hunky local (Callum Keith Rennie).
As Kaya herself says to her son, grownups are often the ones who need to do the growing up. But the one major advantage the adults in Whole New Thing have over Emerson is that they can distinguish between the idealized forms of love he finds in Shakespeare comedies from the messy, painful varieties that are more common in real life.
Rich with ideas and nuanced characters, the script by writer-director Amnon Buchbinder is as skilled and intelligent as one could expect from a man who wrote a book called The Way of the Screenwriter (he also teaches the subject at York University). Yet with all the slow-building tension created by the numerous subplots -- and the many lustful Hidden Cameras songs on the soundtrack -- the climactic scenes feel more timid than they could be. Like such recent films as Michael Cuesta's L.I.E., Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl and Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Whole New Thing is energized by the clash between amorphous adolescent sexuality and the more mercenary imperatives of adulthood. Yet Buchbinder shuts down that avenue of exploration when matters become too unsettling. While he's to be commended for incorporating so many provocative elements in what's essentially a light-hearted family drama, the result doesn't entirely satisfy. However, the performances -- especially Jenkins, who's clearly delighted to be playing such a vivacious woman, and first-timer Webber -- and the fine production qualities should make it easy for audiences to enjoy Emerson's difficult but overdue foray into public education.
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The wry, engaging story of one adolescent's tempestuous coming of age in rural Nova Scotia, Whole New Thing also serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of home schooling. While some children are well-served by the practice, Emerson (Aaron Webber) has turned out to be advanced in some aspects and stunted in others. Then again, it's a wonder that this 13-year-old isn't more screwed up given his parents' eccentricities. Embittered by his failure to fix the world, Rog (Robert Joy) is an ecologically minded inventor with a professional interest in human feces. His wife Kaya (Rebecca Jenkins) is a free spirit who doesn't see the harm in letting Emerson grow his hair long and take a few tokes off a joint. Both parents are oddly proud when Emerson begins having wet dreams, though Dad recommends masturbation so as to cut down the number of stained sheets, noting that "too much laundry is bad for the environment."
Alas, the family that takes naked saunas together does not always stay together. Impressed that her son has already written a novel -- a gigantic, Tolkien-like tome named The Fire of Evermore -- but fearing that he's slipping behind in math, Kaya enrolls Emerson in a local public school. Most of the other students are hostile to this long-haired know-it-all. Having acquired his father's arrogance, Emerson holds the yokels in contempt but still makes a connection with his English teacher, Don Grant (Daniel MacIvor), a man whose sole extracurricular activity seems to be cruising for anonymous sex in a park washroom. Emerson inspires Don to challenge his students more and the class is soon discovering the wonders of As You Like It. The friendship between student and teacher takes a more complicated turn when Emerson starts writing Don courtly love poems. Things grow equally fraught at home when Kaya has an affair with a hunky local (Callum Keith Rennie).
As Kaya herself says to her son, grownups are often the ones who need to do the growing up. But the one major advantage the adults in Whole New Thing have over Emerson is that they can distinguish between the idealized forms of love he finds in Shakespeare comedies from the messy, painful varieties that are more common in real life.
Rich with ideas and nuanced characters, the script by writer-director Amnon Buchbinder is as skilled and intelligent as one could expect from a man who wrote a book called The Way of the Screenwriter (he also teaches the subject at York University). Yet with all the slow-building tension created by the numerous subplots -- and the many lustful Hidden Cameras songs on the soundtrack -- the climactic scenes feel more timid than they could be. Like such recent films as Michael Cuesta's L.I.E., Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl and Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Whole New Thing is energized by the clash between amorphous adolescent sexuality and the more mercenary imperatives of adulthood. Yet Buchbinder shuts down that avenue of exploration when matters become too unsettling. While he's to be commended for incorporating so many provocative elements in what's essentially a light-hearted family drama, the result doesn't entirely satisfy. However, the performances -- especially Jenkins, who's clearly delighted to be playing such a vivacious woman, and first-timer Webber -- and the fine production qualities should make it easy for audiences to enjoy Emerson's difficult but overdue foray into public education.
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