SCARBOROUGH FARES WELL
Documentary-style film a lovely and inspiring portrait of struggling families
SCARBOROUGH
★★★★★ out of 5
Cast: Liam Diaz, Essence Fox, Anna Claire Beitel
Directors: Shasha Nakhai, Rich Williamson
Duration: 2 h 16 m
Available: In theatres
If you're not all that familiar with Scarborough, you might think of it as “the place where Mike Myers comes from.” (True!) Or, less generously, “where all the crime is.” (False.) One thing it's not is a single neighbourhood. With an area of 187 square kilometres and a population in the last census of 632,000, this chunk of Greater Toronto is huge and diverse.
If it stood alone, it would be Canada's 10th-largest city.
Five years ago, Catherine Hernandez's debut novel, Scarborough, delivered a love letter to the region, with a story of three children growing up in its Galloway Road area. Now she has closely adapted her work into the screenplay for Scarborough the movie, directed by filmmaking life partners Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson.
At the centre of the sprawling story are three kids, each about eight. Bing (Liam Diaz) is a Filipino boy struggling with his sexuality; he's also quietly brilliant. Sylvie (Essence Fox) is an Indigenous girl whose younger brother may be developmentally delayed, if only the doctor at the walk-in clinic would pay attention to the signs.
Then there's Laura (Anna Claire Beitel), a white girl who has bounced from her mother's care to her father's, though neither of them is particularly good at the job. She can't read and doesn't talk much, but enjoys making arts and crafts out of the eviction notices regularly pushed under her mother's door.
Filmed in an almost documentary style and from a kid's-eye perspective, the movie finds the three developing a friendship at the school they attend. Before classes they can often be found in its drop-in centre, where the friendly Ms. Hina (Aliya Kanani) entices them with a snack program, amuses them with songs and games, and gently tries to encourage reading skills.
It's a lovely oasis of calm for the children, whose parents are often too busy working to spare them the attention they need. There's more than enough love, but never enough time.
And my heart went out to Ms. Hina, whose dark skin and hijab make her a target of several parents' micro-aggressions. One mom pointedly asks if the kids will be singing Christmas carols at that time of year.
Laura's dad (Conor Casey) is even worse, giving the well-meaning co-ordinator the stink eye at very opportunity. “Daddy says you eat babies,” Laura says in an unguarded moment. Ms. Hina merely asks if Laura also thinks that. The girl shrugs and says: “No.”
Full disclosure: I'm a proud “Scarberian” who grew up in the same neighbourhood where the film was shot, even attending the school they used as a setting. The racial makeup in the 1970s was nowhere near as diverse as today. So despite its issues of poverty and crime that do sometimes plague the area, Scarborough has in many ways just got richer.