Diary of a Lonely Husband

1074 Bank Street

Thursday, May 1,  9:30 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c94wQF3u4S8

Shot in bleak hospital hues – all washed out blue gray greens – The Husband marks Canadian filmmaking icon Bruce McDonald’s foray away from healthy cinema. This is a sickly piece of film. No good can come of it.

Blame Maxwell McCabe-Lokos. He co-wrote, and he hogs the screen throughout. It’s an apparation of a performance: a ghastly, shadow of a beaten man, scraping by, struggling as a recent father, toiling in sufferable employment, and dealing with the stygma of a jailwife who crossed the line with a 14 year old student. Ouch, this movie hurts. 

McDonald reigns in his penchant for humour, letting slip on a couple of light-hearted moments, but for the most part favouring a cold hard realism to tell the tale. A tale of chasing demons, and forcing resolutions which may not exist. The Husband  is a deceptively strong film, that creates an unsympathetic hero who stumbles through a slow motion train wreck of a life. And we can’t look away, and we can’t help but cheer.