by MATTHEW HAYS

Just what Canada needed: a not-entirely-bad (but not terrifically gripping), not-poorly-acted (but still occasionally weakly performed) turgid melodrama.

Don’t get me wrong. There are things to praise in The Bay of Love and Sorrows, the latest from director Tim Southam. What’s sad is that, like so many in the Cancon movie library, this entry feels caught somewhere between a good movie and a mediocre one.

Set in New Brunswick in ’73, the film centres on one lad (Jonathan Scarfe), a young man who’s returned from his international travels where he’s soaked up all kinds of ideals about living a new life. Though he’s the son of a wealthy local judge, he rents a run-down farmhouse and begins hanging out with other locals his own age. Soon enough, he’s fallen in with a bad sort, an ex-con (Peter Outerbridge) who leads him and the gang into illegal money-making activity.

Scarfe, who takes his shirt off an awful lot in the movie, isn’t a terribly good judge of character, and Outerbridge ultimately proves a toxic manipulative force in everyone’s life. Scarfe begins to sleep around a bit, and once jealousies have been ignited and loyalties betrayed, well, there goes the neighbourhood.

Indeed, there are a gaggle of pretty fresh faces in the cast. And Bay of Love is shot beautifully. But something goes awry at about half time, when characters begin to lumber along from one plot twist to the next, feeling more and more like clumsy bellwethers for tragedy. And we know what’s in the pipeline. Can there be any doubt about the fate of these sorry characters?

The most refreshing thing here is the ensemble, the film ultimately serving as a kind of showcase for new talent. Though the performances are at times uneven, Christopher Jacot is exceptional in Bay of Love, as are Outerbridge, Scarfe and Joanne Kelly.

Just wish the script could match the eye candy. :

The Bay of Love and Sorrows opens Friday, Jan. 31

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