Through Black Spruce

Based on a book by Joseph Boyden, Through Black Spruce follows young Cree woman Annie (Tanaya Beatty) as she travels to Toronto to track down her missing twin sister – with the narrative also detailing the exploits of Annie’s uncle (Brandon Oakes’ Will) and his efforts at protecting his family from menacing locals. Filmmaker Don McKellar, work from Barbara Samuels’ screenplay, delivers a mostly impenetrable drama that holds the viewer at arms length from start to finish, as the picture is so lacking in context or an entry point that one wonders if reading Boyden’s novel is a prerequisite for sitting through this leaden, interminable piece of work. And although McKellar attempts to liven up the perpetually static atmosphere with bursts of appreciative style, Through Black Spruce‘s various problems are compounded by Beatty’s often shockingly inept and charisma-free turn as the one-dimensional central character. (There is, obviously, never a point at which the viewer has anything invested in her ongoing success.) The film’s late-in-the-game reliance on eye-rollingly conventional elements (eg an evil drug dealer and his gleefully vicious henchman) only cements Through Black Spruce‘s place as an entirely misbegotten endeavor, and it is, in the end, impossible not to wonder what drew a seasoned filmmaker like McKellar to such bottom-of-the-barrel material.

1/2* out of ****