Toronto nightmare

>> Treed Murray marks an accomplished feature debut for William Phillips

by MATTHEW HAYS

Perhaps two of the finest and grittiest urban nightmare movies came out of the U.S. in the ’60s. There’s Lady in a Cage, the ’64 Olivia de Havilland film in which she’s stuck in an elevator during a power out, while a motley crew of seriously sinister crooks (led by James Caan, in his big-screen debut) ransack the place and torment her. Then there’s The Incident, a ’67 entry about two drunken hoods who torment passengers (one of them being Ed McMahon!) on a N.Y. subway car.
Director-writer William Phillips hasn’t seen either film, though he admits others have cited them after seeing his feature debut, Treed Murray, a new Toronto urban nightmare movie. The film has an ad-exec yuppie (the excellent David Hewlett) lost in a large park in the early hours of a weekday morning. When he asks a young man for directions, the man gives him directions, but insists Hewlett hand him five bucks for his trouble. Hewlett refuses, eventually smacking the persistent kid over the head with his briefcase. That turns out to be a very nasty mistake, as the lad is accompanied by his own gang of misfits, who begin chasing the frightened yuppie. He does what he can to escape, climbing a large tree to hide. But the gang soon find out where he is, and upon finding him, decide to await his descent. But Hewlett isn’t budging, and the standoff becomes a youth-versus-yuppie war of wills.

A Mike Harris hangover?

With that synopsis, the film could very well have ended up disastrous, but Phillips handles the action extremely well. A universally solid cast work seamlessly together, and Phillips manipulates our sympathies adeptly. One moment we feel sorry for the man imprisoned. Another, we’re left feeling like he deserves the torment he’s suffering. It’s a fitting ode toOntario at the end of Premier Mike Harris’s tenure of greed.

Phillips, a graduate of both the Ryerson film program and the Canadian Film Centre, says the inspiration for the film was borne of class difference and indifference. “I was thinking along the lines of how the rich view the poor, but also how the poor view the rich,” he says, sitting in a posh downtown hotel. “Those impressions each have of the other are more often than not wrong.”

But no, he says, this is not an ode to Mike Harris and what Toronto has become: empty, Mammon, unfeeling. “Really, this is an ode to anybody who is starting to hit their stride in life, who is forgetting the compassion they felt in their youth, once they’ve gained more income, get more settled and turn a blind eye to others. To people like me, really: as people grow older it becomes easier to get comfy and just think about that second car.”

Go climb a tree

The specific man-in-a-tree inspiration came after a series of swarming episodes occurred in Toronto over the past few years. “I thought about the prospect of defending oneself. Even though I tend to think of myself as fairly fit, if there are a gang of people around you, you’d be defenceless. On the street, in the subway, in a park.

“I also thought the tree would prove economical, this being a low-budget feature. But then I learned that having an actor 16 feet up in a tree is not cheap. You need a stunt coordinator every time he goes up there, which costs a fortune.”

Though the conclusions to both The Incident and Lady in a Cage were particularly gruelling, the final moments in Treed Murray aren’t quite so nihilistic about human nature. In fact, Phillips, in true Toronto style, almost gives the film’s closure a We-Are-the-World aura. “Well, that’s the story I wanted to tell. Nasty things certainly go on during the movie. But to boot the characters and audience off the edge of the cliff at the end of the movie wouldn’t be me. It’s not all rosy, anyway, it’s not like it could end up a sitcom or something. I didn’t want to be hokey, but I did want to offer some hope.”

Phillips is just happy Treed Murray is getting the kind of positive responses it has been, including five Genie nominations. “When I finished the film, I really had no perspective left on it,” he says. “It’s invigorating to see people taking to the film in this way.” :

Treed Murray opens Friday, Jan. 18