Paul Schrader devises a self-reflexive confessional film in Oh, Canada, one of his smallest but most emotional films yet, presented in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
After his Lonely Man Trilogy (First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener), Paul Schrader switches from original screenplay to adaptation of the late novelist, Russell Banks’ 2021 book, Foregone. The last time Schrader was in competition was in 1988 with Patty Hearst, and 36 years later, he returns with a confessional film, to expose himself bare, in Oh, Canada.
Nearing the end of his life due to terminal cancer, Leonard Fife, a fictional documentary filmmaker, is tenderly moved out of his bed to be interviewed. Narrated by his astrayed son from one his first wife, the film begins with a film crew setting up an intimate space for the interview, led by Leonard’s former students. Frail and nearly immobile, he is supported by his care-taker and wife of 30 years, Emma (Uma Thurman), as they position him for the interview. A camera is placed in front of Leonard sitting, but the viewers are treated to multiple up-close angles of Leonard’s face, showcasing mirror-like structures as a form of self-reflection during the interview.
Leonard begins his story in 1968 and we see a young Leonard (Jacob Elordi) maneuver his journey from the US to Canada to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam war. Changes in aspect ratio, color to black and white, and time jumps across, feed into Leonard’s ailing condition of memory. Across the timeline, Leonard’s capricious and seductive manner charms his way through several partners, opportunities, but towards his career as a documentary filmmaker where he became famous, exposing the secrets and illegal activities of pharmaceutical, environmental, and injustices of capitalist conglomerates. Through these events, the most important are the many sexual infidelities that come to light, in which Emma was oblivious to it all over the 30 years. Wrestling with the fact if it’s true or not, Leonard believes it is the truth, while Emma (and the viewers) must rely on this unreliable narrator.
Amongst all of this, Schrader frames Leonard as a stand-in for himself. He knows he can identify with Leonard, which is why another layer of emotion is added to Leonard’s story. During many interviews, the common theme of escapism is directly related to his cowardice behavior. Truths and lies start to become unclear, causing a disruption from the crew to stop the filmmaking until a discrete camera is in play. As Richard Gere (old) and Jacob Elordi (young) both intermittently play Leonard in flashback scenarios, it is clear that cowardice is the common factor leading all the way up the present. Unsure of what is real or fake, he remembers the one sure thing that changed his life forever, not the women, nor the career, but the country that accepted him for all his faults, his home, Canada.
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