Still The Water Movie Review --Whistler Film Festival

 

We all have moments of our lives that define us as who we are as people. Some good and others can be lessons or others can be bad memories that we don't want to deal with and that leads us to separation from others. That might be friends or even family members as to when you are with them it just brings up bad memories of what happened in the past.

This brings us to Jordie(Ry Barrett) has been away from his family, his brothers, and his father in particular for the past number of years now. What that is we are not completely aware of right away, but you can feel the tension in the air. Jordie is a rather quiet individual, who seems to observe most of what is going on around him and played wonderfully by Ry Barrett.

Nicky(Colin Price) is the older brother and with a bit more determination and knowledge of Jordie's unperfect past, holds him accountable for leaving and the choices he has made in his life and how it has affected him. Colin Price is also great here in a role that I am sure was not easy to play. A lot of emotions play through this little film that for me is one of the better films of the year and of this festival, personally speaking.

There is heartbreak and true pain that is expressed in very subtle and well-orchestrated scenes of what I feel is lacking in film today and that is the old expression- "Less is more".

In a scene when Jordie's truck stalls Nicky is watching inside the house and his wife looks at him and nudges him out the door and just simply says "Go". Sometimes words don't need to be spoken but a lot of writers/filmmakers find a need to fill up the screen with dialogue that is of no use to the character(s) or the plot.

In what would be one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie and one that Susan Rodgers(Writer/Director) discusses with me in the interview she was so kind as to grant me, mentions her reasoning for the shot. I will have it below as well as my interview with Ry Barrett.

I loved the realism that the film deals on, the black sheep of the family-the abuse that took place, and the want/need for reconciliation even if everything is not finalized at the close of the movie, because life does not give us finishes at the end of the day or the end of the year, but rather choices to make things better or let them fester and allow them to grow.

Here is my interview with Susan Rodgers the Writer/Director of Still The Water.

Here is my interview with Ry Barrett who plays Jordie in the film.