Canadian filmmaker Ashley McKenzie makes a notable feature debut with this unsparing portrait of two homeless young dope addicts. Blaise (Andrew Gillis) and Vanessa (Bhreagh MacNeil) spend their nights in a rusting RV out in the woods and their days pushing an ancient lawnmower around their small town in search of employment and drug money. When the mower breaks down, Vanessa gets into a methadone program and lands a job at the local DQ, which leaves Blaise with nothing to do but scratch around for drugs and toss a dead fly from palm to palm. McKenzie is a big fan of the abstracting close-up, favoring inanimate objects in a room and often cutting her actors off at the neck or wrists to incorporate their bodies into the surroundings. Her characters are a little too blank to sustain interest through an entire film, but this modest indie generates a haunting mood of 21st-century despair.
Werewolf
NR • 1 hour 20 min • 2016
