I've Heard The Mermaids Singing

A winner at the Cannes Film Festival, this wonderfully offbeat Canadian comedy about the life of Polly, a different sort of girl Friday, is a real treat. Sheila McCarthy shines in the lead role of a closet photographer who takes a job with a local art museum, and falls in love (from afar) with The Curator (Paule Baillargeon). Constructed as a videotaped confession, Polly relates her feelings for The Curator, and segues into running flashbacks of their relationship. Although the movie has a field day poking fun at avant-garde art, director Patricia Rozema keeps the focus on Polly's story: the story of a woman of limited artistic means and boundless imagination whose world is all but crushed when she anonymously mails a package of her photographs to The Curator--who immediately dismisses them as trite. A beautiful, quirky little film which deserves a much wider audience. Highly recommended.