One Week: The movie

May contain spoilers!
Whenever I see a movie poster with a motorcycle on it, I have to see that movie: World's Fastest Indian, Motorcycle Diaries, etc. So yesterday, when I saw a review in the Globe and Mail for a new movie called "One Week" Mary Ann and I went out to see it. I didn't even care that the reviewer slammed the movie for being too ordinary, too Canadian or shallow or whatever. When we got there, the theatre was packed.

Yes there was a lot of Canadian stuff in it, and Canadians are uncomfortable with any movie (other than a home movie) that has Canadian stuff in it. Real movies airbrush out the CN Tower, apparently. So this movie was over the top Canadian, which may be an oxymoron. Returning stuff to Canadian Tire. Rolling up the rim on Tim Horton's cups (twice!). Kissing the Stanley Cup. I guess they must have overdone it a bit, because the movie got no play in the USA. For some strange reason that didn't make me feel bad, especially sitting there in our packed theatre.

Some of the critics didn't like it - the movie was too shallow, too ordinary, too many Canadian songs. I didn't think so at all. The premise of the film is that a man is diagnosed with cancer, has a month to live, buys a motorcycle and travels across Canada on his own. Seems real to me, but to people who hate motorcycles maybe not. And I thought the movie was amazingly deep in it's view of how people handle death. There was a bit of flash back narrative about him growing up and his dreams being squashed one by one. I figure that I know as much about life and death as the film critics, and I say the movie had a thoughtful and courageous portrayal of the emotions and thoughts that people go through. I loved the music too. I can't really figure out why the negative reviews.

Reasons a person might hate the movie? I know there are people who hate motorcycles. Maybe the haters thought the Tim Horton's cup was a thinly disguised product placement. Hey maybe it was. The film pokes a finger in the eye of the religious faction, too. In a flashback, Ben Tyler will not pretend to be a believer just to make his girlfriend happy. In one scene, he opens a motel-room bible to find all blank pages except a quote in the middle. Funny none of the critics mentioned this, was it too subliminal, or were they too afraid to even mention it in the review? Do they maybe think it takes religion and spirituality to make a movie realistic?