I specifically remember first hearing about this film in a magazine's review article back in 1986. I found it interesting about how two women from totally different backgrounds and different countries, manage to maintain a solid friendship over the hurtles and misunderstandings that something like that may bring.
I later rented the VHS tape as soon as I spotted it in the video store way back then, just to see for myself how much the potent subject matter lived up to its reputation. It didn't disappoint.
The setting takes place in the hamlet of Lac la Biche in Northern Alberta, Canada. There's Roseanne, an indigenous woman who has a few kids and lives with her mother. She has a troubled relationship with her boyfriend which can lead to physical altercations at times.
Then there's Lily Sutton, an upper crust British lady who's husband is a doctor and who has four kids of her own. They're newcomers to Lac la Biche and try and start fitting in with the locals and their remote surroundings . Lily has trouble looking after the young ones while her husband works and that's where Roseanne steps in. She's hired to be the nanny and housekeeper to the Suttons and there's an immediate connection between the two women and with Lily's children as well.
A friendship ultimately brews up between the two with Roseanne growing to confide in Lily about her troubled relationship with her boyfriend and later tries to do the same for Lily after noticing her own marriage isn't as good as it seems. That's where the trouble starts. A dark secret is there among the Suttons and one that's treated with great sensitivity by Lily herself and her oldest child.
A clash eventually erupts between the two women and ends with Roseanne quitting her job in anger. A reconciliation eventually happens followed by an unforgettable climactic scene that exposes the Sutton's dirty secret and brings to light why the Suttons left England in the first place.
I don't want to expose anymore of what develops, but the bond between Roseanne and Lily is the major element to this pleasing, but sometimes troubled story. My favorite scene between the two is when they're picking berries together in the bush. The cinematography was terrific with the way the bush branches kind of framed each of them as they talked. It was a very beautiful setting.
Their totally different backgrounds involving culture and money is evident when Lily is visiting and compliments Roseanne on what a nice house she had. Roseanne takes that to mean the "happy poor" and points that out to her. That brought tension but Roseanne openly admits that she "says too much" sometimes.
Tantoo Cardinal and Susan Wooldridge give excellent performances as the two leads and so does Kenneth Welsh as Dr. Sutton and Tom Jackson as Eddy Cardinal. I was impressed on my first viewing of this film via VHS and still equally impressed after watching it again recently. There are heartwarming moments as well as major conflicts, but overall, well done.
