Splinters (2018) User Reviews

Another queer homecoming

[chong_an · 7/10 · 25 April 2022]

Belle has returned to her rural home / apple orchard for her father's funeral. She meets her mother Nancy and brother Greg. Before she left for the big city, she was an out lesbian with a girlfriend, and upon return is not shy about getting it on again. Her mother is still trying to convince her to find a man, which she refuses to do, but ironically her boyfriend Rob shows up, who she introduces as her best friend. Rob has actually brought along his mother's engagement ring, and so things get complicated.

This is too close to Thom Fitzgerald's The Hanging Garden, with a queer character returning home for a major family event. Beyond Belle's ambiguous sexuality, there is also the hint that her brother may be semi-closeted gay.

Since the story leans heavily to the relationship between the female characters (Belle and her mother), Fitzgerald has tossed some bones to the male audience, with some scenes of shirtless guys, and one shower scene.

Flawed but very watchable

[euroGary · 8/10 · 24 April 2019]

A woman returns from the big city to her small hometown in order to attend a family funeral. Thrown into close proximity with her relatives, old resentments resurface, relationships are rekindled and secrets revealed.

So far, so plotting-by-numbers. But when Belle (Sofia Banzhaf) pitches up in Nova Scotia at her family's financially-troubled apple orchard, her secret is unusual: after years of loudly proclaiming her lesbianism, she is now - shock, horror - living with a *man*! When said man, Rob (the adorkable Callum Dunphy) unexpectedly arrives to lend his support at the funeral, Belle's rather juvenile intention to keep her new status from her mother Nancy (Shelley Thompson), who has never hidden her disappointment at her daughter's sexuality, is doomed to failure.

A major plus for this film is the absence of histrionics: if it were an American - or even certain types of British - production, it is likely the characters' emotions - made raw by the death of the family patriarch - would result in loud shouting, floods of tears and much slamming of doors. But this Canadian film is subtler than that: it acknowledges that in reality most people start to adjust to a bereavement pretty quickly and do not stay mired in misery 24 hours a day. But in a way that is also the film's major flaw: these people are *so* mellow that hardly anything seems to get them riled. For example, every time Belle was on the receiving end of one of Nancy's digs at her 'friends' (lesbians) I braced for a tantrum, but no: instead Belle merely rolls her eyes and pouts. Again. Another flaw is the decision to not further develop hints of Nancy's deteriorating mental state, which makes the viewer wonder why they were given in the first place. And then there is the self-absorbed guitarist who starts singing at the graveside and *never shuts up* for the entire rest of the funeral tea. Honestly, mate, give us a break!

But the film's minuses are definitely outweighed by its pluses. It is an interesting human-interest drama with some amusing bits (Belle's misguided apple tattoo; the size of the deceased's "schlong" being openly discussed with his son at the funeral tea). The cast are competent in roles that do not noticeably stretch them. I can certainly imagine watching this again.

A final comment: introducing this film at the British Film Institute's 2019 'Flare' festival for LGBTQ+ films, director Thom Fitzgerald informed the audience they were watching the director's cut; the theatrical release will apparently be three minutes shorter. What three minutes will be cut from the film I do not know, but I certainly hope they are not the sequences which feature Dunphy wandering around in his underpants. Yum.