The name of the rose

>> The Trudeau miniseries is a mixed bag

by MATTHEW HAYS

I confess to betting that this, the much-touted two-part miniseries about its namesake, Trudeau, would almost certainly suck. Rolled in white-bread crumbs, double dipped in CBC mediocrity, all that Trudeaumania, I figured, would undoubtedly unravel as Trudeaubanalia.

But here’s the good news: Trudeau is actually—for the most part—good fun to watch. Colm Feore, perhaps best known for his uncanny performance in the lead of the unconventional biopic 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, is again uncanny here as Pierre Elliott.
As well as the performances, director Jerry Ciccoritti and writer Wayne Grigsby can also be credited with some of the show’s successes. There’s a truly funny sequence early in the film, where the dawn of Trudeaumania is illustrated through a Richard Lesteresque montage à la A Hard Day’s Night. And there’s a good deal of visual flourish, wherein Montreal cinematographer Noryar Kaspar’s screaming-in-Technicolor shots are juxtaposed with file news footage, often in split screen (recalling Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair).

The miniseries covers all of the historical bases: Trudeau’s ascension to the top, the October Crisis, his marriage to Maggie (and their ultimate woes), the PQ victory in Quebec’s provincial election, the Quebec referendum and Trudeau’s constitutional wranglings. This last part is one of the minseries’ biggest downers. What Canadian in their right mind wants to relive any part of the bloody constitutional talks? My bet is this is when virtually everyone in the country switches over to the celebrity edition of The Weakest Link.

My favourite bits occur in the more personal scenes, the kinds that reveal that P.E.T. was hardly perfect. There’s enough fodder here, let’s face it, for an entire decade of Dynasty. And I was eager for the filmmakers to go totally Oliver Stone on his ass. But nay, that doesn’t happen—the narrative gets too headline-reliant. When Maggie fools around with the Rolling Stones, we learn about it through headlines. Why not try some speculative fiction? Even if Maggie won’t talk details, why not depict her going down on Mick Jagger? (I’d suggest Keith Richards, but that would simply be inhuman.) What about an impressionistic, paranoid dream sequence from Pierre’s point of view? Surely the man must have dreamed?
There’s one scene that really stands out in the film. After Trudeau has embarked on one of his comebacks, desperate divorcee Maggie appeals to him for some cash to help her out. Cruelly, he offers her the 50 bucks he has in his pocket. She loses it with him, in front of the children, and he pins her down. It’s a brief glimpse of the darker side of the former prime minister.

There aren’t enough moments like this. Instead, Trudeau errs on the side of cautious hagiography, suffering clearly from having been made so soon after the man’s death and its sentimental fallout. Couldn’t we have been treated to more scenes depicting Trudeau’s rumoured voracious sexual appetite? No time for even one date with Margot Kidder or Streisand? Me, I would have replaced the Notwithstanding Clause with the claw marks on Trudeau’s back.

But those who were waiting for Ottawa Babylon will have to wait for a few more years, when the shackles of reverence for this complex man will hopefully come undone. :

Trudeau airs this Sunday, March 31 and Monday, April 1 at 8pm on CBC