Rollercoaster

Overall a good movie. However, not a movie to take a first time date to. If you do, you might not feel very cheery for the rest of the evening. Think of it as a movie to reflect on. This is not for wimps, or people with real emotional problems.

When 'rollercoaster' played the Vancouver International Film Fest earlier this year, I thought it demonstrated a kind of emotional depth and a sense of visual style that are exceedingly rare in film these days. While it would be misleading to label the story 'slow', it does have a vaguely European feel to it - a narrative that unfolds more through place and emotional state than through a linear set of events. Ambitious, haunting, and well worthwhile.

Part of the success or failure of a movie is whether it can create a plausible sense of time and place. "Roller-coaster" succeeds. It effectively employs scenes that, under different circumstances, would disparagingly be called overused or uninspired, but here they seem fresh and compelling. It reminded me a lot of "Hurricane Streets".

Roller-coaster is the story of five seemingly aimless, conflicted teens from a group home in Vancouver who break into a defunct amusement park. Each of them has a problem or a secret the movie will eventually reveal. Mix all of this with the teens' confrontations with a security guard who at first bullies and torments them. Later it appears that, whether out of boredom or a change of heart, he befriends them. However, his kindness is just a means to an end.

Too many movies are guilty of playing down to the audience. When they show angry teens, the emotion seems contrived. However, "Roller-coaster" manages to make the anger, frustration, confusion, and boredom of growing up seem real. You develop sympathy for the characters because they don't come across as spoiled or irritatingly self-pitying.

Epilogue (added March 14, 2006:) I rented Roller-coaster this past weekend and was amazed at how faulty my memory is. Several years had gone by between the time I first watched the movie and did my review. Roller-coaster is actually better than I remembered. I would now say that it is in the same league as the incredible movie, "Mean Creek".

Not a disaster pic, not teensplatter fare nor a 3-D actioner, "rollercoaster" is a surprising ride about five very real kids who in one day at a closed-down fair come to terms with the everything that is wrong in their lives. Director Scott Smith turns a good tale here and gets his best performance from the explosive Brendan Fletcher, an actor to watch.

"rollercoaster" got great buzz at the Toronto Film Fest, won Most Popular Canadian feature at the Vancouver Film Fest, Best Canadian Feature at the Victoria Independent Film Fest and is nominated for a Leo award, along with Fletcher and Turton each for Best Actor.

Kudos to Scott Smith for getting this film made. It was beautifully shot and put together. The setting made for a visually stunning and poetic film about disenfranchised youth. The actors did such a convincing job of their roles that I was feeling their pain. Teen angst at its most depressing.