This movie may be a lot of things, but one thing it never now or will be is wonderful. This is a boring, trite, typical, dated, insufferable and manipulative little waste of digital video that should never have seen the light of day at a film festival. Perhaps it would be okay for a "Made for Lifetime" TV movie. No... that's really being cruel to "Lifetime."

Set in a resort island community in Canada, where there is a lot of talking about "mainlanders" and "islanders" that most people in the audience cannot relate to and don't give a shit about, the film covers about four interrelated storylines revolving around about ten characters. Have you ever seen a movie with a main character you couldn't care less about? Imagine one with ten of them.

The most well-known actress in the piece (in America anyway, this a decidedly Canadian movie) is Sandra Oh, who surely shot this little DV crapfest long before she was famous for being in "Sideways" and TV's "Gray's Anatomy." Oh is a snooty real estate agent having marital problems with her husband (anyone seen "American Beauty?") Theres also Murray Chakin as the corrupt mayor, and Paul Gross (who has chubbed up to the point of being unrecognizable after his role on TV's "Due South") as Oh's husband, the thoughtful town cop. The other characters include a "bad girl" (i.e. former town slut) who has returned to the resort community to run a restaurant and her daughter who is being pressured to have sex by her boyfriend, a hottie named Taylor played by Caleb Langille who looks like a young Lucas Haas but who has the acting talent of a young Hayden Christensen (i.e. none).

By now you are surely asking yourself: What the fuck is this film doing in a gay and lesbian film festival. You are not alone, my friend. You see, Wilby, the titular town of the piece, must be the most openly judgemental town in Canada (or the most poorly written one) because there is a big to- do about some names being published in the local paper and we immediately understand it will be the names of gay men who have been having sex in a local park. (This "outing" is treated like it is nobodies business when, in fact, anyone having sex in a town park ought to be ashamed of themselves - gay or straight). If you are so indiscreet as to get caught having sex in public and have your name known, then perhaps it should be published in the paper.

But morality and intelligence isn't an issue here, as anyone who has seen this film or read its script will immediately comprehend. The thing that allows this boring snoozefest to be admitted into a gay and lesbian film fest is the two gay characters (apparently there are only two in this town but since they have not really met and have intimacy for the first time in the movie one assumes they were jacking off in the park...) Um... where was I? Oh, yes. The two gay guys one of whom is - and this is so fucking amusing - trying unsuccessfully over and over to commit suicide. Ha ha hahahaha. Jesus asshole. Suicide jokes haven't been funny since "Harold and Maude" and gay suicide jokes have never been funny - not to gay people anyway. I think straight people stopped thinking they were funny in the mid 80's.

This movie is just boring and obvious. That's its biggest flaw. We only care about the gay guys in the film because they are gay. We no almost absolutely nothing else about them. The plot about the real estate agent and the mayor's corruption is lame and the mother/daughter plotline about the daughter losing her virginity is handled with all the grace and sophistication of a stupid "After-school Special." Weak, weak weak. What a waste of 2 hours of my life. And to think, just like the faggots in the movie, I could have been out sucking cock in the park instead.

Notes:

Written and directed by the guy who plays the dumb cop in the film Daniel MacIvor.

The film was at one time going to be called "Honey" but a Jessica Alba film by the same title was released soon after this film was completed.

The film debuted at Toronto in September of 2004. The film has played several film festivals and was picked up by Film Movement (and its been such a long time since I saw such a large piece of "movement" at a film festival) but no US release date has been set yet to the best of my knowledge.

The version I saw at Agliff in October of 2005 with my friend Craig and his boytoy Lance was horribly projected. The video was degraded and the image kept shifting.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: D+

Cinematography\Lighting: F

Special Effects\Make Up: C

Music: F

Final Grade: F