Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada is a dark, strange, and only partially engaging drama, a rare misstep in the prolific director’s career.
Although Schrader’s films can be hit or miss, he has had significant success, with the successes of his wild and provocative “First Reformed” and his surprisingly powerful “The Card Dealer.”
With Schrader, you’re always waiting to be hit by a very cold plot twist that sends its characters down the rabbit hole. As a prolific film artist, Schrader’s best films are classics, yet his worst are fascinating and full of interesting elements.
Now in his late 70s and still making films that generate shocking and fascinating discussions, it’s impossible for me to dismiss Schrader, even when he makes something like Oh, Canada.
Richard Gere plays Leo Fife, a famous, elderly film director who agrees to do an extensive interview for a documentary about his life. Michael Imperioli plays the documentary’s director, while Uma Thurman co-stars as Fife’s wife, who sits next to him.
Since extensive flashbacks take up most of the running time, the character of Gere is also played by Jacob Elordi (a good choice to portray young Leo). We see that in his younger days, Fife was a draft dodger and created a whole new life for himself in another country.
That’s it for the plot.
There is a brief montage of films made by Fife, but other than that, we are swept through the mental fog of Fife’s ailing psyche. Schrader has made many disturbing and confronting films, but they have never been that boring.
The odd touch is that, in addition to Elordi and Gere playing the same character at different times in his life, sometimes a flashback will start with Elordi, then switch to Gere playing the role and taking control of the scene and vice versa.
Likewise, Thurman sometimes plays her younger self against Elordi as Fife’s younger self. There are two practical reasons why Schrader decided to do this: it conveys how we look at the past, regardless of our current age and immerses ourselves in our fading memories.
“If you’re going to make a movie about death, you better hurry.” Paul Schrader talks about how the long bout with coronavirus inspired him to make a film based on Russell Banks’ novel FOREGONE and how he ended up calling it OH, CANADA. #TIFF24 pic.twitter.com/8pWqvJsrEg
– TIFF (@TIFF_NET) December 18, 2024
It’s also a way to keep Gere in the film, because otherwise he’d be confined to a wheelchair and only do scenes in which he looks exhausted and struggles to remember, is life. Either way, seeing Gere in bed with a younger actress playing the younger version of his wife, or seeing Thurman sharing a sexy moment with Elordi, is downright bizarre.
It reminds me of Todd Solondz’s strangely experimental film “Palindromes” (2004), in which the main character was played by a shifting cast of actors. Here, it’s meant to be provocative and connect with the enduring quality of our memories, but the efforts lead to a creative misstep. However, it’s the only thing truly bold in the film.
Gere excels at playing an accomplished artist who, at the end of his life, reflects on his regrets and mistakes. However, as the focus fades from him to Elordi and back again without much sustained interest, the whole thing feels random and disconnected.
Elordi continues to be a captivating actor and “Oh, Canada” is beautifully shot. I liked the way the film stock defines eras and changing realities, and the details of the sets and periods are lively. However, I kept waiting for Shredder to unleash something truly shocking and it never happened.
In fact, not much of anything happens in Oh, Canada.
Among Schrader’s unmissable films are Blue Collar (1978), Mishima: A Life in Four Acts (1985), Comfort of Strangers (1990), and Adam’s Resurrection (2008). In addition to his acclaimed screenplays for Martin Scorsese, Schrader continually crafts original works that explore questions of faith, identity, and the human psyche.
His films are meditations on loss, fate, and fractured identity. I was excited to see Gere and Thurman (reunited for the first time since the 1992 thriller Final Analysis) and what they would bring to a Schrader film but their efforts are wasted in one of the few Schrader films that I would hesitate to offer a compelling invitation.
2 stars
