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Divine intervention >> John the Baptist is back to save the planet in Extraordinary Visitor by JOHNSON CUMMINS
Extraordinary Visitor is a unique Canadian production in the sense that it actually takes place in the present (one more prairie drama set in the 1800s and I'm going to choke) and, although there are definitely some chuckles in here, director-writer John Doyle doesn't rely solely on this. Instead, he weaves a solid and bizarre tale about a family living on the eve of destruction. God, it appears, is finally fed up with our greedy humanist ways and has decided to lay the earth to waste. Mother Mary intervenes and sends down John the Baptist (Raoul Bhaneja) to his namesake town of St. John's, Newfoundland, to act as a prophet and bring back a sign of hope. He's given seven days to find the ever-elusive sign of hope or else floods and lightning, etc. will be unleashed. Once on earth, he befriends a family expertly played by Codco's Andy Jones and This Hour Has 22 Minutes' Mary Walsh. Marietta (Walsh) is an extroverted talk show host on local television; much like Nicole Kidman's turn in To Die For, Marietta's goal is to take her show national--and pre-millennial hysteria mixed in with a modern-day Nostradamus is just the ticket. Marietta's husband, Rick (Jones), is a couch terrorist whose panoramic vision of global concerns means he can never focus on the problems under his own roof. This modern-day fable closely follows the biblical version, and John Doyle's subtle portrayal of the trappings of Catholicism drives the message home swiftly. However, the symmetry between modern-day John and biblical John stops short of turning this film into a history lesson and/or morality play. John's sermons on the mount are done through a local TV talk show and his temple of worship is set in a shopping mall, while Wall Street takes on Babylonian proportions. Raoul Bhaneja may be the new actor on the block here, but his role as the soft-spoken John makes him as a powerhouse to look out for. Extraordinary Visitor opens Friday, February 5
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I get this really squeamish feeling whenever I see a film steeped in Canadiana. Canadians, for the most part, don't like to see each other onscreen unless we're laughing at ourselves. Our culture always works like a charm when we take a more comedic viewpoint; once we step away from that, more often than not we're left with CBC late-night fodder.