Clear cinema
Lucid is a high-concept thriller
Ryan Simmons Volunteer
Try to imagine the kind of movie that could be believably set in Winnipeg, and a desperate and lonely character study or a documentary about poverty for the CBC will likely come to mind. Sean Garrity, a dedicatedly local filmmaker, is betting that his slick sophomore feature, Lucid, can overcome and change that preconception.
Garrity gained notice with his 2001 effort, Inertia, a dramedy focusing on tangled romantic relationships that won Best First Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival the same year.
Lucid focuses on Joel Rothman (Winnipegger Jonas Chernick, also the co-writer of all 17 drafts of the script who came up with the idea for the movie and the lead in Inertia), a single father and psychologist forced to deal with three post-traumatic stress disorder patients while battling his own guilt about the dissolution of his family, which has left him unable to sleep. Joel finds himself losing his grip on reality as he is sucked into the dementias of his patients, who believe themselves to be at the centre of a bizarre and insidious psychological experiment. Chernick gives a fine and thoroughly likable performance, and the supporting cast is equally effective (fairly well-known Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie especially so).
Lucid employs the self-deprecating, character-based humour also used to great effect in Inertia, which has become a trademark of Garrity’s, bringing some levity to a genre that, too often, can be painfully serious. This humour is Garrity’s attempt to bring something new and refreshing to the psychological thriller in his first stab at creating a genre movie, marking his movie as something different.
Growing up watching movies, Garrity noticed that everything exciting seemed to happen somewhere else.
“[Things seemed to happened] in a place more important than Winnipeg,” said the filmmaker.
So when he decided to make movies himself, he wanted to set them here, and without any feelings of embarrassment. So Joel’s office features the city’s flagship Hudson’s Bay store, and the only noticeable product placements are coffee cups from The Fyxx. Provincial buildings are employed to add some gravity to one of the movie’s most intense scenes.
The depiction of the city is also striking, as Winnipeg comes across as quite a metropolis. Garrity said this aspect of his movies, including his shorts, had to be pointed out to him.
“[Winnipeg is a city that] most people think of as a provincial town,” said Garrity.
But having spent key formative years in a rural community closer to Brandon than Winnipeg, the city was “unbelievably huge,” and as a result he tends to present its “city aspect as its primary face.”
Adding to the glitzy representation of the city is the very polished look of the movie. Lucid had a budget of $2 million, but it looks like it’s worth much more. Garrity credits the skill of the local film community, although they’re a secret he’s always reluctant to share with other directors.
“[The workers here] should be being paid 10-times what they are,” he said.
Garrity intends to appeal to a mainstream crowd with Lucid. He claims the average Canadian attends only two movies a year and he wants to bring them out to his. The movie certainly has broad appeal. It’s a fine potboiler and the comedic edge that runs throughout is strikingly refreshing.
