“Mile Zero” (Canada 2001) **
Directed by Andrew Currie
Andrew Currie’s debut film arrives with the promising caption ‘the most frightening and beautiful place is the human heart’. When the film opens with rough-shaven Derek Ridley Michael Riley) picking up his son Will (Connor Widdows) after school, it soon becomes apparent that he is abducting his kid from estranged wife, Allison (Sabrina Grdevich).
The tale of abduction is a hot subject with failed marriages occurring ever so often with desperate and often hostile spouses over eager to shower their love on their kids. But Currie and scriptwriter Michael Melski give father Derek a kinder and more humane disposition, (at least initially), not an ugly or violent one, as would probably turn out in a Hollywood movie. Derek wants the best for Will and for wife Allison, whom he still loves a little too adoringly. In fact, he wants the family back to normal. The viewer is therefore set up to anticipate an honest, intelligent and even moving film with fresh performances.
Currie’s film attempts the task nobly. The film switches between the current road trip to the Rocky Mountains – father is taking his son to a wilderness utopia – and flashbacks of cordial family gatherings. The flashbacks reveal the marriage breakdown as Derek’s emotional stability falters. The handheld camera jitters about just as much as Derek is unsure of how he can make things right. At one point, he secretly breaks into and bugs his son’s room in order to watch him on video, a feeble and illegal attempt at remaining close to his separated son. The underlying reasons for the breakup, however, are not satisfactorily explained. If Derek loves his family that much, why then would Allison leave him? The other man in Allison’s wife appears to be a carbon-copy of Derek. As a result, the father-son relationship turns out to be more interesting, primarily because of the incremental deterioration of the father’s emotional fragility. Here, Derek grows desperate and occasionally violent when things do not work out as expected. The flashbacks also reveal this other nature and the script is at least cautious enough to have the revelation occur after each current incident.
It is here that the film starts getting into trouble. It lies too much on incidents – and there is a lack of them. Derek’s background is hastily sketched – the only scene giving a hint of his vocation being the one set in the car where he talks to his supervisor. From what is assumed, Derek is in a rut with a working class job. Yet, he somehow manages to rent an apartment for himself after the breakup, leaving the rather elaborate house to his wife.
If Riley’s performance lacks range or subtlety, it is due to the script’s limitations. Riley’s character registers anger, desperation and hopelessness but during the scenes when Derek is supposed to inflict fear on the boy – he comes across more of a hapless fool. Shaving with a bare razor and cutting his face is an instance where the scene could swing both ways. Widdows, as the boy, does an all right job as the wide-eyed innocent boy caught entangled in the mess.
Currie’s film builds to an emotional climax in terms of the father and son relationship. The slight twist in the plot at the end does not follow the natural flow of incidents. At best the viewer is left with illustrations of the beauty and fears that come from the human heart. If only Currie and Melski could reveal some darker truths, the film would have turned out to be more intelligent and moving besides just being plain honest.
