Hoser highway

One Week is a road movie stocked
with tired Canadiana

CROSS-COUNTRY CLICHÉS: One Week

by MALCOLM FRASER

Michael McGowan, the writer and director of indie dramas My Dog Vincent and Saint Ralph, returns with One Week, his latest work of slacker Canadiana. Ben (Joshua Jackson) is a frustrated writer in Toronto, engaged to Samantha (Montreal’s own Liane Balaban). As the film begins, he receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Much to his fiancée’s and family’s dismay, he eschews treatment, opting instead to buy a motorcycle and take an open-ended road trip across Canada.

I hate to pick on Canadian films, I really do, but this one invites criticism with its litany of English-Canadian cultural clichés. Copious use of World’s Largest roadside objects for humour value? Check. Hockey and Tim Horton’s coffee used as symbols of significance? Check. First Nations culture deployed as cheap spiritual décor? Chee-eck. The film consists mostly, though, of montages in which Jackson broods his way through the Canadian landscape, with earnest singer-songwriter types strumming and emoting on the soundtrack. The film’s most interesting conceit is a handful of narrative digressions, telling the stories of the minor characters who float through the story, but the device could have benefited from being fleshed out a bit.

One Week is also encumbered by a rather heavy-handed voice-over, a risky manoeuvre at the best of times. Luckily, it’s redeemed by the voice itself—McGowan managed to rope in Campbell Scott, and his fine delivery brings out some humour and smoothes over some of the clunkier lines. Apart from this, and quite oddly, some of the film’s better performances are from non-actors—singer Emm Gryner is charming as a folkie hiker who runs into Jackson in the Rockies, and there’s even a cameo from the poet laureate of hosers, the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie.

Jackson’s performance is strangely inexpressive (then again, he’s never been the strongest thespian; a glance at his filmography suggests that Dawson’s Creek may have been a career highlight and/or fluke).

Balaban fans will enjoy seeing her get some decent screen time, but her presence here merely affirms that she should be working in bigger and better films. If there’s any justice in the world, her brush with Hollywood royalty in Last Chance Harvey will elevate her to the star status she deserves.

ONE WEEK OPENS THIS FRIDAY,
MARCH 6