Victoria Day

It's 1988 Toronto. Ben Spektor is a student and a star hockey player. His parents are Russian immigrants. They speak Russian to him while he replies in English. He likes Bob Dylan who is coming to town. There are two girls and two idiot friends. A teammate goes missing after borrowing $5 from him to buy drugs.

The first part is a little slow. When the guy goes missing, the slowness allows a darker moodiness to seep into the movie. I do want better visual cinematography. It's a very bland filmmaking style. It's almost deliberately static but not in a stylized way. When combined with the low key tone, this can get rather flat. It also could use more music especially being such a large part of the story. The kids certainly talk a lot about it. The music that it does have is some lesser songs which is totally expected for a Canadian indie. The budget is what it is. The dream playlist has limitations. As for the young cast, Mark Rendall is not really leading man material but he brings a steadiness to the teen. Holly Deveaux is sweet and one big scene to end the movie. Melanie Leishman is also interesting. This indie has interesting characters in a standard but complex coming-of-age story. There are a few great memorable scenes. Filmmaker David Bezmozgis could do more and add to the material but of course, it is still a Canadian indie and that has limitations.