Leave it to beavers
In the case of Canadian-made Ice Blue, having it all is having nothing at all
This Canadian-made Prairie Gothic has it all. Dead and dying animals — beavers and raccoons; it doesn’t get homier — murder and suicide and ghosts and dreams and violence and bent cops and sex and drugs and rock. And roll.
It all adds up to … Well, the problem is that it doesn’t actually add up. Or rather, it adds up to not enough and too much at once. Ice Blue is like a jigsaw puzzle with a few missing pieces that have been replaced with some from other puzzles. And there’s no image on the lid to help you get the picture.
It is, to be sure, a beautiful mess. Filmed in small-town Alberta by first-time feature director Sandi Somers, the film has a wonderful sense of eeriness and dread.
Billy MacLellan and Sophia Lauchlin Hirt star as John and Arielle, father/daughter farmers who also raise beavers. It’s a fragile and lonely existence, made more so by the fact that Arielle, who is just turning 16, has been home-schooled since her mother, Maria, left years earlier.
Arielle is surprised but pleased when her mom turns up one night to see her.
She’s less happy at being asked not to talk about the visit, but since she’s just started hanging out with a local troublemaker Christian (Charlie Kerr), she’s getting lots of practise keeping things from her dad.
And he’s seeing Christian’s aunt Elizabeth (Dawn Van de Schoot), so indiscretions and incriminations are piling up faster than branches at a beaver dam.
Most screenwriters would be content with this much mystery — oh, did I mention Arielle’s weird, watery dreams? — but writer Jason Long just keeps piling on the strangeness until it’s all the cast can do to keep up. They try mightily.
You, viewer, may not have the same amount of patience for what is a dispiriting and mildly confusing finale.