A moving portrait of the talented Heath Ledger

I AM HEATH LEDGER

This rather standard-format documentary should really be called He Is Heath Ledger. Co-directors Adrian Buitenhuis and Derik Murray interview an impressive cadre of Ledger’s family and friends — though not former partner Michelle Williams, mother to his 11-yearold daughter, Matilda.

But it remains a moving and informative picture of a man who was a chess champion, a budding director – he was planning to shoot an adaptation of Walter Tevis’s chess novel The Queen’s Gambit when he died – and a literal whirlwind; many of his home movies show him spinning in circles, seemingly unable to stay still.

It also reminds us that it’s been almost 10 years since the talented Aussie was found unconscious in his bed by his housekeeper on the afternoon of Jan. 22, 2008. He was pronounced dead 45 minutes later. He was not yet 30, and had recently completed a role as The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, a role that won him a posthumous Oscar.

The doc ignores Ledger’s early work in Australian TV — like many of his countrymen he appeared on Home and Away — and picks up with his role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), which brought him to Hollywood, where his house became a hub for young actors, especially Australians. (It’s suggested that Adrian Grenier did “research” there before starring in TV’s Entourage.)

What emerges is a portrait of a performer so driven that he would often literally collapse after filming. Shooting Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, he joked that when it was done he would “drop to the ground dead, for a year.” It was tragically prophetic. ∂∂∂

I Am Heath Ledger opens May 4 in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

JACKIE BOY

Watching Jackie Boy, a superbly assured first feature from Canadian writer/ director Cody Campanale, you may begin to wonder if this is some kind of arthouse experiment. Will there ever be any dialogue?

Yes; after seven minutes of wordless flirting, substance abuse, rough sex and misogynistic tweeting by Jack (Alino Giraldi), we finally get the first line, from one of his buddies: “Bulls—t.” Maybe some things are best left unsaid?

His pals seem to have walked out of an early Neil LaBute play. But Jack is the worst of them, treating women as disposable objects and boasting “I’m gonna f---in’ ruin that bitch,” after meeting the sexy, selfconfident Jasmine (Shannon Coulter).

But then an amazing thing happens. Jack starts to develop real, above-the-groin feelings for Jasmine, who refuses to take crap from anyone. We already knew Jack had a good side – he’s nice to his cat, and I guess nothing says filial love like bringing your dad booze and a hooker while he’s in hospital. But this is something new and confusing and a bit scary. His friends can’t figure it out either.

Tilted one way, this could develop into a harmless rom-com, the type of which Canadian independent cinema has seen too much of late. But fear not (or maybe I should say do fear) because Campanale takes the story to a very different, dark place. The ending isn’t easy to watch. You may even have a hard time buying one particular twist. But you won’t soon forget it, either. ∂∂∂

Jackie Boy opens May 5 at the Royal in Toronto, and plays the Mayfair in Ottawa on May 17 and 18, with others cities to follow.

THE SANDWICH NAZI

You’ve got to love the precision of a deli owner whose sign boasts: “Best Sandwiches in North America!!” Two exclamation marks, and a wider assertion than “best in Canada,” but stops short of “the world.” That’s Lebanonborn Salam Kahil, who runs La Charcuterie Delicatessen in Surrey, B.C., and who regularly regales his customers (and director Lewis Bennett) with bawdy tales of his former career as a male escort. In addition, he has strict rules for customers – hence the Seinfeld-esque Nazi sobriquet – but he also makes sandwiches for Vancouver’s poor and homeless. You take the good with the bad with this guy; he’s a sandwich with everything on it.

The Sandwich Nazi opens May 5 at the Carlton in Toronto.

FIRST ROUND DOWN

Any film that combines hockey, pizza delivery and professional assassination deserves marks for originality if nothing else. Writers/ directors/former hockey players/siblings Brett M. Butler and Jason G. Butler present the story of Tim Tucker (Dylan Bruce), a hockey prodigy who comes home to look after his younger brother after the death of their parents. But he soon discovers that it’s not easy to go from being a mob hitman – did we mention he’d had a career change? – to a small-town pizza delivery driver.

First Round Down opens May 5 at the Carlton in Toronto, with a opening-night cast and crew Q&A.

SLED DOGS

Promising to pull back the curtain on the commercial sled dog industry in North America, director Fern Levitt looks at the treatment of canine competitors in the thousand-mile Iditarod race and other sledding competitions. The film premiered at the Whistler film festival in 2016, where it won the world documentary award and the best female-directed documentary prize.

Sled Dogs opens May 9 at the Lightbox in Toronto, and at Cineplex cinemas in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa, and in Montreal on May 17 at Cineplex Forum.

Heath Ledger