by MATTHEW HAYS

What’s a nice filmmaker like Cassandra Nicolaou doing behind a feature like Show Me? The Toronto-based director, who has become notorious on the film festival circuit for award-winning comedic short films like Interviews With My Next Girlfriend, has clearly turned over a new leaf with her feature debut, a dark, intense and complex hostage-taking movie.

The film opens when one unassuming urban professional (played with cool finesse by Michelle Nolden) sits in her car while caught in a traffic snarl. True to many downtown Toronto corners, she is approached by a pair of squeegees (Katharine Isabelle and Kett Turton) looking for a few bucks. When she acquiesces and hands them some money, they reward her by getting into her car, sticking a knife to her throat and forcing her to drive out of town.

The three descend upon Nolden’s lakefront cottage, where a psychological game of cat-and-mouse ensues. The two young captors torment their captive, while she tries desperately to secure an escape strategy. Nicolaou has crafted a sharp and edgy suspense film, and one that deserves high praise, especially considering that it is her first kick at the feature-film can. Kidnapping movies are nothing new, but what’s so refreshing about Show Me is the way Nicolaou’s script keeps us guessing about what might happen next—this film is full of surprises and pleasing plot twists. To give any more away would be, well, criminal.

“People are affected by this film in a broad range of ways,” confirms Nicolaou about the response Show Me has garnered on the festival circuit. “It is not a black and white film—the point for me was to reveal as little as I could, to give the audience a bare minimum of information while keeping them engaged. It seems so many films you go to now, you know in the first 15 or 20 minutes how the whole thing is going to pan out. For me, films that are so unbelievably predictable do not make for a very fun or interesting film-going experience.”

Traffic jams and twisted trios

Nicolaou says the inspiration for Show Me first struck her, not surprisingly, while she was stuck in a traffic jam in downtown Toronto. “I spend a lot of time trapped in traffic, as I think most regular drivers in Toronto do. I once sat there and noticed these two kids on the corner. They asked me for money, but I didn’t actually have any to give them. When you turn down someone asking for money on the sidewalk, you can walk on after you’ve said no, but if you’re stuck in your car, you can’t. That tension struck me.”

But that, of course, is only the launching point for the unusual and tense three-way personal and political games that follow between the two captors and their hostage. While Nicolaou says she didn’t examine landmark hostage-in-their-own-home movies like Lady in a Cage (1964), she says she did look closely at films that involved a limited number of characters who are trapped in a confined space, like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) and two Roman Polanski films, Knife in the Water (1962) and Death and the Maiden (1994). “Movies in which there are a triangle of characters intrigue me, the idea of power constantly shifting, of a series of scenes between two people, where there are negotiations of power and shifting allegiances.”

Split sympathies

As well, Show Me plays on audience sympathies, which Nicolaou manages to manipulate very subtly. “Some people come away from the film hating the captive and loving the kidnappers. For many others it’s the other way around. I wanted the audience’s sympathies and allegiances to constantly be shifting. And as I wrote it, and as we edited it, I thought of it as a puzzle involving three very different characters.”

Though Show Me begins in a decidedly urban setting, the action is dragged (by force, as it were) out into the wilderness. Most of the film was shot near the small town of Port Carling, Ontario, and Nicolaou says the location helped the cast and crew in terms of creating atmosphere. “There’s a lot of intensity in the script. The location, three hours north of Toronto, was very isolating, so that was a very intense environment for everyone. The editing process was also quite lengthy. I guess when you live with something for that long, it can be like being in a relationship with a blood relative—you may love it at times and then hate it, but there’s no leaving it.”

Show Me’s small budget comes in at just under a million, much of which came from the emerging filmmaker feature film project at the Canadian Film Centre. Nicolaou went through the director’s program several years ago and credits the CFC with offering a creative and open atmosphere. “The CFC is great, in that they manage to show you the ropes while letting you do your own thing at the same time.

“It has meant that I was able to make Show Me, with such a talented cast and crew. The people who were on board were here because they really wanted to be a part of this film.”

Show Me screens as part of Image+Nation at the Parisien on Saturday, Nov. 5 at 9:20 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.

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