Perfunctory Movie Review: One Week

I'll begin by stating that Michael McGowan's Canadian road trip flick (starring Joshua Jackson) is hardly a movie at all. Un-cinematic to the point of stasis, One Week is more of a slide show put to music. A slide show put to music, narrated by a self-centered bore.

Not to imply that there's any inherent crime with that. I once put on a slide show with my friend of my trip through Tunisia. It was set to Destroyer. The thing is, it lasted all of 8minutes and we didn't charge admission.

Another key distinguishing characteristic of McGowan's slideshow is its ridiculous surfeit of overstretched patriotic/nationalistic images and stereotypes. I'm all for localization - the denial of which is typical of too many Canadian films - but this film takes it overboard. Seriously, we can do better than the Stanley Cup, cottage docks, and lovable Newfies.

To be fair, the film is cut and shot very nicely. And there are a couple cool enough musical cameos to grab your attention intermittently - Emm Gryner sings the timeless Un Canadien Errant (made famous by Leondard Cohen amongst others) and Joel Plaskett does a pretty rad version of his own A Million Dollars.

And if you haven't seen this advertisement yet, I think One Week has to be the first movie that sold the movie using pull-quotes from Twitter users.

That's definitely better than making up a fake reviewer, and it probably rates higher in my book than quoting hackneyed local affiliate critics or Larry King.