Film’s appeal rests on brotherly bickering

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This article was published 02/07/2010 (5941 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After making Who Loves the Sun in the mosquito- and blackfly-infested environs of Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnipeg, it should not be entirely surprising that writer-director Matthew Bissonnette chose to follow it up with a similar comedy-drama set in the more convenient, car-friendly, bug-free turf of Los Angeles.

Passenger Side (the title of the film was inspired by the Wilco song of the same name) feels like an urban echo of that 2006 film in that it’s about two guys, once close, now interacting through a cloud of past hostility.

Sun’s Adam Scott plays Michael, a failed novelist compelled by his (offscreen) mom to play chauffeur for a day to his estranged brother Tobey (Joel Bissonnette).

Tobey has some serious drug addiction in his past and Michael’s personal threat level goes to orange when he drives his bro in his beat-up BMW (a beater beemer?) from random destination to random destination. Is Tobey selling or acquiring drugs?

In fact, Tobey is on a different mission altogether. But it takes a lot of travelling, including a drive through a desert, to sandblast away some of Michael’s distrust and resentment.

Who Loves the Sun, the movie’s appeal mostly rests with Bissonnette’s way with repartee. The bulk of the film’s running time is made up of banter between the brothers. Perhaps since Joel Bissonnette happens to be the brother of the film’s writer-director, a certain caustic veracity comes through in the conversations, in which the subjects include the Montreal Canadiens, tranny hookers and mom.

Away from the summer-cabin milieu of Who Loves the Sun, Passenger Side reflects a bit of the insanity of city life, as when Michael’s personal space is invaded by the aforementioned hooker (Vitta Quinn), or the brothers encounter a gas station attendant apparently prejudiced against Canadians. A visit with an elderly clairvoyant foreshadows a plot twist you might not otherwise see coming.

Occasionally, the movie either veers away from credibility (an accident victim who has just cut off two of his fingers utters a highly unlikely witticism) or simply becomes eye-rollingly gratuitous (a vignette on the set of a porn movie doesn’t have anything to do with anything).

But for the most part, the movie is engaging and funny, largely on the strength of Adam Scott, an appealing actor adept at wrapping his tongue around Bissonnette’s venomous bon mots.

Scott seems to be slumming when he does beneath-his-talents studio fare such as Step Brothers or the appalling rom-com Leap Year.

The cheaper the movie, the more he rises to the occasion. Here’s hoping that quality doesn’t define his career.

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

MOVIE REVIEW

Passenger Side

Starring Adam Scott and Joel Bissonnette

Globe

14A

HHH out of five

 

Other voices

 

Selected excerpts from reviews of Passenger Side.

 

An intriguing and funny ride that doesn’t hit you over the head trying to be one thing or another.

— Jim Slotek, Jam Movies

 

Bissonnette achieves a hypnotic effect with Passenger Side. L.A. slides by in a daze, at once inviting and threatening. Michael and Tobey are just two Canadian dreamers in a city where dreams often die.

— Peter Howell, Toronto Star

 

Simple and smart, Canadian director Matt Bissonnette’s Passenger Side is what’s known in theatre circles as a two-hander, a two-person play in which everything depends on dialogue and performance.

— Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

 

Passenger Side is a lot smarter than it first appears, and a lot more moving.

— Jay Stone, Canwest News Service

 

Passenger Side is deceptively insular: Despite taking place within a single day and never leaving the Los Angeles metropolitan area, it still manages to be a satisfying road movie.

— Andrew Barker, Variety

 

Carefully paced and, at times, cleverly self-conscious, the gentle unfolding of the brothers’ relationship via an urban road trip is full of nostalgia and regret, hope and forgiveness, all of which emerge from the unlikeliest of places.

— Chris Bilton, Eye Weekly

 

It’s like a Richard Linklater movie from the mid-1990s: very little happens, and that’s sort of the point. The conversation is engaging, the two leads snap instantly into the relaxed but guarded vibe of lifelong adversaries, and the script parcels out little bits of information as needed.

— Norman Wilner, Now magazine

 

— Compiled by Shane Minkin