A tender coming of age/road film, Wildhood follows a young man as he reconnects not only with his biological past but his indigenous Mi’kma’ki heritage. Philip Lewitski plays Link, an apparent ne’er do well-stealing copper with his younger, one-eyed brother Travis (Avery Winters-Antony) at their drunken abusive father’s whim. Discovering that his mother, whom he presumed long dead, is actually alive, Link and his brother escape the claustrophobia of the trailer park and head off in search of her.
Along the way, they encounter the good-hearted Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), on his way to a pow-wow where he has long danced: he is part of the same indigenous Canadian tribes as Link, but has fully embraced his culture. Link, meanwhile, has dyed his hair blonde and has lost the language of his mother. He, like writer/director Bretten Hannam, is ‘two-spirited’ – linked to different communities and the land, while also coming to terms with his own sexuality.
The gentle love story that emerges between Link and Pasmay is sensitively and subtly handled by the director, never verging into cliché and a part of Wildhood’s overall character rather than its single focus. Indeed, the film is concerned with many branches of identity: cultural indigenous identity, queer identity, family identity both biological and self-created… all cumulate in this well-shot drama.
The open spaces, waterfalls and deaths of animals are given equal weight in Wildhood, amidst the drama and more predictable road movie tropes. The cast are all strong, Lewitski and Odjick making a believably complex couple with younger, often wiser sibling Winters-Antony able to offer insight despite impaired vision. An eventual celebration of embracing who you are, this is a thoughtful, human film which presents a corner of the world rarely seen in the mainstream.
Dir: Bretten Hannam (15, 108 mins)
Wildhood is out Fri 2 Sept
words KEIRON SELF
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