Saturday, March 2: 1 pm PICTURE DAY
DIR: Kate Melville. 93 mins.
Cast: Tatiana Maslany, Spencer Van Wyck, Susan Coyne
One of the most charming and vibrant debut features by a Canadian filmmaker in recent memory, Kate Melville's Picture Day features rising star Tatiana Maslany as Claire Paxton, a teenage girl who has all the freedoms of adulthood but none of the responsibilities. Forced to repeat her last year of high school due to bad grades and absenteeism, Claire still prefers to cut class whenever feasible and spends her nights clubbing, living on the fringes of the adult world she's almost part of.
When two men enter Claire's life, things begin to change radically. Jame, the singer in a popular Toronto faux-funk band, is intrigued enough by Claire to pick her up from school the night after they sleep together. Claire is soon confronted by someone from her past: her former babysitting charge, Henry, a shy, geeky science whiz who keeps shoeboxes full of mementoes — most of them relating to Claire. After a chance meeting and a shared blunt, Claire is determined to help Henry get noticed at school — hardly difficult, since she's already infamous.
As Claire bounces back and forth between the teenage and adult worlds, the flaws of both become increasingly apparent. If her teenage friends judge her too much for her past, the adult world doesn't guarantee more maturity or understanding. The taunting and backstabbing at school are nothing compared to the casual insensitivity of James or her mother, who is too obsessed with her own tragedies — mostly involving her errant boyfriend — to worry about what Claire is going through. Rarely have the dynamics of a presented so honestly, as in a cutting scene when Claire finds her weeping mother on the phone, bemoaning her boyfriend's departure once again. Looking Claire in the eye, she sobs, "What else have I got left in my life?"
Smoothly directed by Melville, Picture Day sketches a scruffier, less upscale version of the world inhabited by Noah Baumbach's lost adolescents. The film is anchored by an extraordinary performance by Maslany, who more than delivers on the promise evident in Grown Up Movie Star. Together, Maslany and Melville have created a protagonist as unique, infuriating, complex and memorable as the heroines of New Waterford Girl, Emporte-moi or Double Happiness.
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