Heater

Far from the Hollywood-ized depiction of vagrancy in films such as Ironweed, Terrance Odette's Heater is a raw and appropriately unpleasant look at one cold night in the lives of two homeless men (played by Gary Farmer and Stephen Ouimette) in Winnepeg. The city around them may be decorated for Christmas, but Ouimette and Farmer are desperately trying to avoid frostbite and return a $20 space heater to a department store across town, a quest that takes them through shelters, free clinics and church basements. The central existential dilemma--what to do when your only material possession is an appliance for a house you don't have--is matched by a visual minimalism that's one part aesthetic choice and one part low budget amateurism. Odette tries to mine the material for Beckett-inspired bleak humor, but the harsh moment-to-moment struggle of these characters is too rough to sustain any real comic distance. Both main actors give darkly committed performances (though it's unclear whether Ouimette is playing his part as schizophrenic or autistic), and even if viewing Heater sometimes feels like a stint of community service, the film serves up an honest depiction of a social ill. A strong optional purchase. (D. Fienberg)