44/13
Based on the novel Foregone by Russell Banks
Leonard Fife, one of the sixty thousand draft dodgers and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam, shares all his secrets in order to demythologize his mythologized life. This is the second time Paul Schrader has directed one of Banks’ novels on screen, after his adaptation Affliction (1997).
Mentioned in Film Junk Podcast: Episode 961: In a Violent Nature + TIFF 2024 (2024)
This is a drama of accidental draft dodgers between Virginia and Montreal in the late 1960s and 2023. Leo Fife (Jacob Elordi/Richard Gere) is a famous left-wing documentarian in Canada who dies of cancer in 2023.
However, he insists that his wife, Emma (Uma Thurman), also a former student, be present for the filming
Leo allows two former students, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli) and Diana (Victoria Hill), to interview him for a CBC documentary about his life. We soon learn that the myth of Leo’s past as a Vietnam War resister and free-spirited traveler to Cuba is different from Leo’s current (real?) truth.
We learn that Leo’s escape to Canada did not fit the myth
Leo is a bit confused, but the story he tells is of a shallow, directionless life that has caused much pain to others, including his two ex-wives, Amy (Penelope Mitchell) and Alicia (Kristine Froseth), and his son, Cornel (Zach Shaffer). “Oh, Canada” is a strange film in many ways, but it tells an engaging story about the myths we all allow ourselves to create about ourselves.
Uma Thurman is good as Emma, who initially resists Leo’s truth-telling but moves toward quiet acceptance
Paul Schrader’s use of multiple actors in multiple roles is confusing and unnecessary, but Richard Gere does a great job of telling the truth to the woman he spent 30 years with. “Oh, Canada” is not about avoiding the Vietnam War; it is a drama about coming to terms with one’s own myths.