One Week

An acquaintance lent me this movie and was quite insistent that I watch it. It clearly means a lot to him. I think I understand why, but I can't say I share his enthusiasm. The movie is ostensibly about the importance of living every day as if it was your last, to live in the moment and not to be afraid of life. It's a message that can be very powerful.

Unfortunately, this film goes off the rails at numerous junctures and as a result the film actually seems to say that it's OK to be a total dick to people who care about you as long as you have the excuse of having terminal cancer.

The protagonist, Ben, is meticulously laid out as someone who has routinely abandoned any pursuit the second he meets resistance. If one person tells him that his first attempt at something is less than successful, he just gives up. Over the course of the film, our omnipotent narrator who (spoiler alert) turns out to be Ben himself, or rather the narrator of Ben's book about this experience, and he gets to let us know how his generally self-absorbed behavior is actually OK because it circumstantially happens to make people's lives better and in one case even saves some one's life. Also, it's totally OK that he cheats on his fiancee  the night before she comes to join him on his journey of self discovery because he never loved her anyway. Oh, and also, clearly one night stands with cute girls in the woods are the secret to the meaning of life, and fuck personal responsibility.

You may think I'm being a bit harsh, but this is quite seriously how things play out in this film, and the constant narration makes it pretty clear how Ben feels about all this.

Even technically, the film disappoints. It's celebrated as a great Canadian film, but it's primarily a road trip... a love letter to the Canadian countryside and it's quirky population. However, a quick look at IMDB reveals that the geographical order to the locations he visits is completely jacked up. Now, this normally wouldn't bother me, but if you're making a big deal about going from one place to another, and celebrating the journey, you should at least get the order of landmarks right. It would be like an American Journey in which we go from New York to Disney World to Chicago to San Francisco to the Grand Canyon and end up in New Orleans.

I can't think of the last time a film has annoyed me as much as this one did. I normally don't mind unlikable protagonists, but we are so clearly supposed to not only identify with Ben, but approve of him. The only acknowledgement we have of Ben's utter dickishness comes from his fiancee right before he dumps her, and her biggest crime in the film is wanting him to face up to his situation and take steps that will at least give him a fighting chance to survive.

I would feel differently if the film didn't bed over backwards trying to get us to root for Ben, but it does.

I'm going to be giving the DVD back to my acquaintance this week. He's going to ask me what I thought about it, and I'm going to have to be very tactful in what I tell him. I'll have to tell him that I can see how the film's theme of being true to yourself and living each day as if it was your last really hit home for him. I will avoid discussing anything else about the film.