Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) tells stories of her deceased father Jim (David Thewlis) with Father Greg (Luke Wilson) who is planning his funeral. Jim was a health inspector who exercised his fearsome powers on small restaurant operators. Veronica is a music teacher leading her students on a performance tour. Student Clive and bus driver Mike both take a liking to her but she rebuffs them both.
Filmmaker Atom Egoyan delivers his usual interior personality story. I am willing to buy that this is a troubled father daughter pairing but I'm not sure if I buy this sort of crazy. I don't know why the kids would not tell the truth to the police. Even if Clive is willing to lie, I don't see why his friend would. Like Clive says, he is forced to attend some annoying sessions. I would tell the truth just to avoid that. As for Thewlis, this is an interesting performance. I am much more interested in his work than the complicated story of self-destruction. The disjointed flashback structure is not clear enough and it doesn't have enough space to give the story room to explain itself. The music performance road trip is clear enough but the story with Walter needs work. I may even just cut out Walter all together to clarify the plot. All in all, there is some interesting material with some troublesome issues.
Filmmaker Atom Egoyan delivers his usual interior personality story. I am willing to buy that this is a troubled father daughter pairing but I'm not sure if I buy this sort of crazy. I don't know why the kids would not tell the truth to the police. Even if Clive is willing to lie, I don't see why his friend would. Like Clive says, he is forced to attend some annoying sessions. I would tell the truth just to avoid that. As for Thewlis, this is an interesting performance. I am much more interested in his work than the complicated story of self-destruction. The disjointed flashback structure is not clear enough and it doesn't have enough space to give the story room to explain itself. The music performance road trip is clear enough but the story with Walter needs work. I may even just cut out Walter all together to clarify the plot. All in all, there is some interesting material with some troublesome issues.