Film Review: OH, CANADA

Consider this less of a movie review and more of a public service announcement. The latest starring role of former cinema heartthrob Richard Gere has him dying of cancer in a most unpleasant way. Being a great actor he does it quite convincingly, making the disease look even more horrific than what you might have imagined. And if you already have cancer and are feeling optimistic, you don't want to see this version of it. But hey, maybe that's just me.

Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi

A complex and complicated film based on the novel "Foregone" by Russell Banks, Oh, Canada recounts the life of documentarian Leonard Fife, as told on camera to a former student of his and fellow documentarian played by Michael Imperioli, the actor best-remembered as Tony Soprano's bad-boy TV nephew Christopher. Featuring Uma Thurman as Fife's devoted wife in a nearly silent role -- although she plays someone else for a minute near the end, who knows why -- it's a star-studded cast gone to waste.

Slow, dark and basically boring, the film is also tricky and keeps you guessing. Over the course of it we see our hero as a teenager, then a young husband and father, and an old man, but not in that order. It jumps all over the place as Fife recounts his past, with a few delusions thrown in since he's also suffering some sort of mental decline. Sometimes he is played by Mr. Gere and sometimes not. His youngest version is played by Jacob Elordi, who I never heard of before but have since learned is a hot box-office draw with the ladies. 

The music is loud, often atonal and annoying. There is nothing pretty to look at, except for one brief scene of a car driving through a sleepy Vermont town on a rainy day; you'll know it when you see it since it's a stark contrast from the rest of the film, mostly close-ups of Fife's grizzled face -- badly in need of a shave, coughing and dying.