One Good Road Trip Deserves Another

You can only drive so far with sugar in your gas tank, and that goes the same for maple syrup – such is the problem with One Week. Having just returned from a vacation that consisted of hitting the highways of Alberta, there’s no better time to take the Canuck road trip movie for a spin. Annoyingly, like many other Canadian movies (OK, to be precise, movies made in English Canada, as Quebecois cinema is a huge exception), it alienates with a nation-building agenda that’s just so damn try-hard that sometimes you wanna scream into a butter tart.

Vancouver-born Joshua Jackson (yes, that guy from Dawson’s Creek) stars as Ben, a failed-author-turned-malaise-riddled-school-teacher who learns that he’ll probably die of cancer and decides to temporarily leave his fiancé and life in Toronto for a road trip out west on a vintage motorbike. His sojourn along the Trans-Canada Highway is packed with life-changing moments, as he meets extraordinary people, beholds sublime sights and introspects until he achieves the transcendence needed to become the person we all want him to be. While the beauty of the country captured by the camera is genuine (for the most part – that breeching whale off the coast of Vancouver Island looks like blown-up stock footage), much of the movie has that calculated, constructed feel of so many Canuck flicks that shotgun cultural signifiers at the viewer because they REALLY WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT YOU’RE WATCHING A CANADIAN MOVIE, EH.

Writer/director Michael McGowan’s heart is in the right place, but his script seems like it was designed to be a government grant agency’s wet dream. Shortly after Ben starts his trip, he considers heading back home but becomes inspired to press on by a couple of spunky Maritime teens who are on their own (pedal) bike trip because of a promise they made. We learn that those hardy Maritime folks sure do keep their word, we get an obligatory mention of Canadian Tire, and then we move on. And because we don’t have a stop in Quebec, later we learn that Ben’s favourite song is a French lullaby that his mother would sing to him. It’s as if the movie’s saying, “Don’t you worry, Quebec, you’re invited too!” Hell, I half expected Ben to come across an Inuit person building an inukshuk on the side of the highway – just because.

Taken on their own, these heavy-handed moments are forgivable, but when a story is peppered with ‘em, they become intrusive and irritating. The worst example of this occurs when Ben receives a quizzical message after rolling up the rim on his Tim Horton’s coffee cup: “Go West Young Man.” A prophetic Tim Horton’s reference… really? Really? Reminding Canadians that they love a certain corporate coffee chain to the extent where they’ve built it into their national identity(!) is one of the lamest pop-culture clichés we’ve got, and it really needs to stop.

And speaking of things that are more obvious than clever, the cameo by Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie as a sort-of pot smoking mystic is cheese. Downie is fine in the role, but it’s just one more forced in-joke. Similarly, later, in a completely random occurrence that has little bearing on the story, Ben meets a folk singer in the middle of the woods (played by singer Emm Gryner), whom he sleeps with, seems to fall in love with immediately, but never really mentions again. The subplot of Ben’s troubled relationship with his fiancé, Samantha (played by excellent Canadian actress Liane Balaban – see New Waterford Girl for proof), doesn’t come to a believable resolution either. Again, it feels like the story is being sacrificed for the excessive Canadian-isms.

Much better, and much more cinematic, are all the “big things” that Ben visits, such as Medicine Hat’s giant tipi (which thankfully the film acknowledges as pretty friggin’ underwhelming), Gravenhurst’s huge Muskoka chair (pretty cool!) and, I think, Sudbury’s massive nickel (a classic). (Sadly he’s doesn’t make it to the gargantuan Ukrainian Easter Egg in Vegreville.) Actually, the geography in the film is pretty screwed up, with Ben visiting things out of linear order for an East to West trip. This is one of the most hotly-contested aspects One Week, as you can see for yourself in the Ask The Director section of the film’s website. If you’re making a film that hinges so much on a culturally-specific journey, that kind of thing matters, at least to your target audience.

What it comes down to is that a road trip film needs to have a natural flow, so the Can-con has to fit into naturally. It only does sometimes in One Week. There are a good number of legitimately transcendent moments; it really is overwhelming to see Ben gaze upon the badlands from horseback, to contemplate his fate wile sitting on a surfboard in the Pacific or to gain perspective in the shadow of the Terry Fox statue. This stuff seems real, like moments you could easily have while road tripping across the nation yourself. Other scenes, though, particularly the one where Ben runs across the Stanley Cup by accident in a small town, are like being beaten with a rolled up flag.

Despite all these gripes, I really respect McGowan for making the film because there’s a lot of love and sweat behind it, which is particularly apparent if you watch the behind-the-scenes stuff on the DVD (newly released by Mongrel Media). I’d recommend One Week on the strength of those genuinely transcendent moments that naturally capture the cinematic beauty of Canada. (The excellent soundtrack helps too; it features great road trip songs from the likes of Sam Roberts, Great Lake Swimmers, Stars and Joel Plaskett –who also has an unnecessary cameo in the film as a busker).

Having spent the better part of last week winding my way through the Rockies, snaking through the badlands, chasing the horizon of a seemingly endless prairie landscape, there’s no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming beauty of this country can speak for itself. For anyone trying to make a truly “Canadian” film: there’s no need to scream “O Canada” in anyone’s face, just tell us a story that rings true to the tune of the nation itself.

-Dave Alexander