NEW WATERFORD GIRL
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Blame Canada series at Film Society of Lincoln Center Director: Allan Moyle Writer: Tricia Fish Cast: Liane Balaban, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Andrew McCarthy, Mary Walsh, Nicholas Campbell, Cathy Moriarty
If you're a teen living in a town that has one road, a couple of taverns, no movie houses and no tourists or anyone from the outside communities to stimulate change, what do you do? The usual activity seems to be (if you're a girl) to get pregnant and if you're a guy to put gals in the family way. After all, leaving for the big city is not an option if you're so isolated you barely know that urban areas such as Montreal and Toronto exist--and New York is something somewhere down there "in the States." Allan Moyle's quirky movie scripted by Tricia Fish (who claims that the story is in no way autobiographical) is about such a dreary town which, despite its being right on the ocean, is about as scenic as the South Bronx. "New Waterford Girl" opened up the Blame Canada! festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and will presumably play at some art houses later. Though the movie is idiosyncratic, it is not done in the style of, say, Justin Kerrigan's energetic "Human Traffic"--which deals with 20- somethings grooving on weekends after putting in time on their stultifying jobs.
While Hollywood movies made in Canada--particularly in Vancouver--have often been losers, the Canadians themselves seem incapable of turning out a bad product. "New Waterford Girl" is in no way destined to become the next "Titanic" but the picture is a cute study of a dysfunctional family living in the stixiest of stix towns way out in the Eastern Canadian island of Cape Breton (in the province of Nova Scotia, I believe).
Mooney Pottie is the eponymous New Waterford Girl, a 15- year-old who is moody more than Mooney and one who bears evidence to the possibility that no matter how isolated and inbred a location may be, there's always someone who does not fit in. In her fairly large family, everyone but Mooney is happy, or at least so thinks her dad, and he'll be darned if he's going to allow a strange bird like her to go to New York where she has just won an all expenses paid scholarship. She has to find a way to convince the old man to let her out of this prison, so she latches on to a regular tradition. Whenever a girl is knocked up, she is sent by train--which looks like the Toonerville Trolley--to the town of Sydney or thereabouts to spend a few days getting an abortion, and then to return, her reputation intact. If she can convince pop that she has a bun in the oven, he will be the first to put her on that train--except that she will be stateside bound and as virginal as the day she was born.
Moyle gets good performances out of the ensemble and knows how to employ irony with the young people so that the boys--and not the girls--are the ones worried about their reputations. Injecting a catalyst into the action, Moyle introduces a hip teen from the Bronx whose dad is incarcerated, implying that she and her mom (Tara Spencer- Nairn and Cathy Moriarty) are mafia people on the run. As the town teacher, Cecil Sweeney--who is in love with his gifted but isolated student Moonie--Andrew McCarthy does a surprising turn as a former brat-packer who has matured into a sensitive adult; a flawed educator who is goodhearted enough to encourage the object of his desire flee the coop. "New Waterford Girl" is a slow-moving, sensitive coming of age with considerable irony and humor who is the first to leave her "Margaret's Museum" town, and the sharp-looking Tara Spencer-Nairn uses some slightly magical powers to aid in Mooney's liberation.
Not Rated. Running time: 97 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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