Well-intentioned, but not well made

Despite its strong environmental message, as a movie Kayak to Klemtu flounders

It’s not easy being a critic.

Earlier this year, for instance, I was covering the Cannes festival, watching as many as four films a day with nary a break for a glass of rosé or a buttery croissant.

Jet-lagged on my return, I was immediately thrown into a screening of Hereditary and discovered it might just be the scariest movie ever.

One of the more unusual travails, however, is figuring out how to treat the well-meaning movie that doesn’t quite work. Indian Horse was one such beast; ecstatically received by audiences across the country, it told an important story about Indigenous identity and suffering. Five out of five for heart, I say, but a mere three stars for the filmmakers’ craft.

Kayak to Klemtu falls into the same category.

Message-wise, it couldn’t be better; a 14-year-old Indigenous

girl named Ella (Ta’kaiya Blaney) decides to paddle

500 kilometres up the coast of British Columbia to pay homage to her deceased uncle and also to reach the village of Klemtu, where she plans to testify about the dangers of allowing supertankers into the nearby waters that her people depend on for their livelihood.

The problem arises not in the story but the telling.

Director and co-writer Zoe Leigh Hopkins hits just about every cliché imaginable over the course of the film’s 90 minutes.

There’s the I’m-eating-icecream-straight-from-the-tubbecause-I’m-sad scene.

The ol’ throw-the-cellphoneout-the-window manoeuvre. (In this case, it’s into the ocean.) Since our young heroine has 25 days until the environmental hearings, there’s a ticking-clock subplot, with subtitles to match.

And her late uncle is an almost stereotypically wise shaman, appearing in dreams and flashbacks to deliver ancestral platitudes, usually starting with the words: “After I’m gone ...”

The actors do good work, although they’ve clearly been directed to pitch their performances into the comic realm, which sometimes undercuts the larger tone of the film.

As Ella’s other uncle, Lorne Cardinal reminds us that he’s a solid acting force and one of Canada’s great Lornes.

The film’s message of environmental protection is powerful, and backed by an ironic real-life coda; days after filming was completed, a barge spilled 200,000 litres of diesel fuel off the coast of Bella Bella, a nearby fishing community and the director’s hometown.

But as a drama, Kayak to Klemtu ultimately founders.