You Might As Well Live

Has Canada found its Jody Hill? You Might As Well Live makes a strong case for fellowship with the current cinematic kings of irreverent alienation. First-time feature director Simon Ennis co-wrote the story of perennial loser Robert Mutt with the film's star, Josh Peace, who gives an inspired and chameleonic performance. If you've seen him before, you won't even recognize him in Mutt-mode. Singled out as a retard, pervo and douchebag his whole life due to his incredibly naïve disposition and rampant ineptitudes, Robert Mutt even fails at killing himself. Committed to Riverside Mental Hospital, Robert finally feels at home, gaining confidence with his alpha role among the inmates, until he's kicked out for starting to feel too happy. The poor man-child finds himself back in the community that drove him to suicide in the first place, fuelling a hotbed of inappropriate situations. Within moments of arriving home, an angry clown (a cantankerous Stephen McHattie) is accusing him of digitally distributing child pornography and his pop-tart wannabe sister and creepy manager uncle lock him out of the house naked. After what's oddly only the second most memorable naked man chase scene of 2009, Robert reconnects with his one real friend, Hershey (Dov Tiefenbach), a smooth, suave hippy, and his girlfriend, Cookie (Kristen Hager). One sweat lodge trip later and Robert's had a vision of his local league baseball hero, Clinton Manitoba (Michael Madsen, hick-ing it up), telling him he needs some money, a girl and a championship ring in order to finally be "a real somebody." A mob job, a sex party, a roller skating transvestite and a lot of dude ass later and you'll either be laughing hysterically, wide-eyed in shock, or both. The sequence of events is too convenient to be plausible; it's really more of an exercise in "when it rains, it also shits on your head, but happiness is only a demented writer's ode to catatonic love away." Kinky weatherman reports are included as features, along with a couple hilarious deleted scenes and a feature commentary from Ennis and Peace explaining how even more over-the-top inappropriate the script was originally. Finally, cinematic proof (other than Brain Candy) that Canadians can be at least be as fucked-up and funny as boundary smearing comedians the world over.