Falls featured in new film opening Friday
Filmmaker intrigued by the small town nature of Niagara Falls
NIAGARA FALLS is the backdrop for an award-winning Canadian drama opening at Niagara Square Cinemas Friday.
“Mary Goes Round,” the debut feature from Toronto director Molly McGlynn, stars Aya Cash (“You’re the Worst”) as a substance abuse counsellor named Mary who loses her job and driver’s licence because of a drinking problem. She’s then asked to meet her estranged father, in her hometown of Niagara Falls, who is dying and hopes to see her connect with her teenaged half-sister who she has never met.
McGlynn, who has also directed episodes of “How to Buy a Baby” and “Workin’ Moms,” says she originally set the story in New Jersey, where she grew up, but Niagara Falls had a similar vibe.
“Even though I’m not from Niagara Falls, it feels kind of familiar to me,” she says. “We had a great time shooting there … the community was really great. And certain locations like Dad’s Diner, for instance, is one of my favourite spots now.
“We wanted to incorporate real locations as well to showcase a side of Niagara Falls that people haven’t seen before. Because I’m not interested in showing anything like what it is. In Toronto, you don’t see, like, CN Tower shots.”
A key moment in the film and trailer shows Cash, approaching rock bottom, pouring Jack Daniels into her soda while she rides the Niagara Skywheel on Clifton Hill alone. McGlynn didn’t mean for it to be a riff on the film’s title, but it was an important scene using the tourist district to haunting effect.
“For me, it was like the cyclical nature of family misunderstandings and addiction patterns are very hard to break free from,” she says. “And the thing I like visually on the ferris wheel is that she’s in this car, enclosed, as high as she can get away
from everybody … it was a place of pure isolation for her.”
Much like New Jersey feels like a small town next to New York, McGlynn was intrigued by Niagara Falls’ small town stature next to Toronto.
“I think the challenge of someone like Mary’s character trying to get sober in a place where it’s small, and people know each other … I don’t know if I wanted it to be sad, I just wanted it to be a little more authentic.”
Filmed during November and December 2016, the film earned high praise at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It went on to win the Panavision Independent Cinema award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and for best narrative feature at the Vail Film Festival.
Much of the film is carried by Cash’s emotional performance. McGlynn was already a huge fan after a story arc in “You’re the Worst” in which Cash painfully depicted a battle with depression on the otherwise comedic show.
She arrived on set without much rehearsal time and got the character “right out of the gate.”
“She’s extraordinary. I have so much respect for her and I hope her career keeps blossoming.”
While friends have commented how similar the character seems to her, McGlynn says the film isn’t autobiographical. Nor was it fun to write.
“It’s kind of tough to go there emotionally,” she says. “There are parts of me that are very much in this and parts of me that very much aren’t.
“I wouldn’t go as far to say I am Mary, but there were definitely times, like 10 years ago, where I could have gone down that path easily. But (I didn’t) want to put shade on that at all.”
While the critical response has been a thrill, the response that meant the most to her was from a 70-year-old woman in Vail: “She has an oxygen tube, very glamorous woman, and she just grabbed my hands and said, ‘I’ve been sober for 30 years and my parents were addicts.’ She said, ‘You totally captured this.’
“To me, that meant everything. Because at the end of the day, I’m making films for that.”
Mary Goes Round screens at 6:40 p.m. and 9:10 p.m. at Niagara Square Cinemas (7555 Montrose Rd).
John.Law@niagaradailies.com 905-225-1644 | @JohnLawMedia