It seems to be a rite of passage for many Canuck filmmakers to tackle the Canadian road movie genre, exploring themes of alienation and isolation in relation to an expansive, almost foreboding landscape of seemingly endless space.
And while geography does play a large part in the specificity of the oft-depicted feelings of listlessness and aimlessness in distinctively Canadian films – Goin' Down the Road, Highway 61, Tail Lights Fade and The Suburbanators, to name a few – there's also the issue of identity in relation to our decidedly less humble and self-conscious neighbours to the south.
Such is the case with Leonard Farlinger's pseudo-mystery comedy romance, I'm Yours, wherein a one night stand between the conflicted Robert (Rossif Sutherland) and wild child Daphne (Karine Vanasse) turns into a road trip from NYC to North Bay after she couriers a bag of his stolen money ahead as a form of blackmail. Her motivations for doing so are murky, even though she indicates that she just wants him to meet her family and stand in as her fiancé.
Here, the city represents opportunity mixed with chaos and insincerity; it's an escape for those with compounded mistakes, such as youthful indiscretions and a general lack of identity. As Robert and Daphne travel north to her hometown, occasionally eating poutine and discussing obvious landmarks for CanCon purposes, they begin to unfold as real people with flaws, connecting in ways not possible in NYC, where one night stands and bad pickup lines are the status quo.
An overriding theme of chance changing the world fuels the romantic trajectory of the film, with discussions of how NORAD occasionally mistakes a swarm of geese for a nuclear attack. Occasionally touching and ultimately satisfying as a philosophically light love story, I'm Yours is slightly more interesting as an academic text of Canadian identity than it is an overall film, mostly due to some stilted writing and an overly pat resolution.
(eOne)And while geography does play a large part in the specificity of the oft-depicted feelings of listlessness and aimlessness in distinctively Canadian films – Goin' Down the Road, Highway 61, Tail Lights Fade and The Suburbanators, to name a few – there's also the issue of identity in relation to our decidedly less humble and self-conscious neighbours to the south.
Such is the case with Leonard Farlinger's pseudo-mystery comedy romance, I'm Yours, wherein a one night stand between the conflicted Robert (Rossif Sutherland) and wild child Daphne (Karine Vanasse) turns into a road trip from NYC to North Bay after she couriers a bag of his stolen money ahead as a form of blackmail. Her motivations for doing so are murky, even though she indicates that she just wants him to meet her family and stand in as her fiancé.
Here, the city represents opportunity mixed with chaos and insincerity; it's an escape for those with compounded mistakes, such as youthful indiscretions and a general lack of identity. As Robert and Daphne travel north to her hometown, occasionally eating poutine and discussing obvious landmarks for CanCon purposes, they begin to unfold as real people with flaws, connecting in ways not possible in NYC, where one night stands and bad pickup lines are the status quo.
An overriding theme of chance changing the world fuels the romantic trajectory of the film, with discussions of how NORAD occasionally mistakes a swarm of geese for a nuclear attack. Occasionally touching and ultimately satisfying as a philosophically light love story, I'm Yours is slightly more interesting as an academic text of Canadian identity than it is an overall film, mostly due to some stilted writing and an overly pat resolution.