Cold Comfort

Nominated for 5 Genies (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar), this offbeat thriller based on James Garrard's stage play takes a "B"-movie plot and stirs in a little psychological acuity to create a bizarre backwoods romp that almost succeeds. Canadian stalwarts Maury Chaykin (Twins) and Margaret Langrick (American Boyfriends) star as a father and daughter who've taken provincial to its furthest extremes. For her 18th birthday, Floyd (Chaykin) brings Dolores (Langrick) a present: Stephen (Paul Gross), a half-dead travelling salesman that Floyd has rescued with his tow truck during a blizzard. Cut off from civilization, both literally and figuratively, Stephen slowly comes to realize that he's caught in the worst kind of trap--stuck between ignorance (Dolores) and madness (Floyd). Dolores, though bound to her dominant father, is ready to sprout wings and fly this wilderness burg; she's naturally curious about an outside world she's never seen. Floyd wants to give his "pumpkin" the world on a silver platter (even if it means chaining Stephen to the wall), but is seething with homicidal rage over his repressed incestuous desires. It's a darkly comic cat and mouse game that gets a lot of mileage out of Chaykin's exceptional interpretation of madness and Langrick's smooth transitions from child to vamp, but it finally seems more like an exercise in the cinematic strange, a what-if that is more interested in playing with possibilities than offering a believable story. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Pitman)