Picture Claire is a Canadian film trapped in the body of an American film. Bruce McDonald directed a Semi Chellas screenplay and there are problems.
Claire (Juliette Lewis) is French-Canadian from Montréal. Claire runs into trouble and seeks out her old boyfriend in Toronto. Lily (Gina Gershon) has her own problems with shady people in Toronto. Both end up at a donut shop in Kensington Market in Toronto at the same time. The police are chasing after Claire for what Lily did.
The idea is that the actors look similar so there is mistaken identity. Claire's old boyfriend Billy (Kelly Harms) happens to live on the 3rd floor at 54 Kensington Avenue; Lily lives on the second floor in the same building.
Purses and film canisters are switched, adding to the mystery. People keep running into each other throughout the film.
McDonald produced Claire's Hat, a documentary where he goes over the problems of the 2001 film. Reportedly, the studio prohibited him from releasing the documentary. Let's dance through some of the issues.
Lewis is a very fine actor. Believing she is Quebecois is a huge problem since Claire knows virtually no English (having lived in Montréal) and doesn't speak that much French. Claire conveys a lot non-verbally when she doesn't speak. When she speaks, Claire comes across as someone with a limited vocabulary in any language.
Gershon is well-suited for someone who is in a scheme. Lily strangles Eddie (Mickey Rourke) in the first 15 minutes of the film. Lily is good at killing but bad at escaping the neighbourhood. She has the out that the cops aren't chasing after her yet she can't leave.
Cynthia (British actor Camilla Rutherford) is Billy's girlfriend. She is supposed to be a unsympathetic character. She is so unsympathetic that you don't know why she is in the story to start.
The fault doesn't lie in the non-Canadian actors. McDonald knows the only Mickey Rourke rule you need to know: use him in a single, very short scene. Lewis and Gershon are really good but the script isn't kind to them.
McDonald knows how to use Callum Keith Rennie in multiple projects. Here he plays Laramie who, along with Culver (Peter Stebbings) are chasing after Lily on behalf of Eddie. Laramie is a cliche and Rennie does the best he can with the character.
Tracy Wright and Raoul Bhaneja play fully fledged detective characters with honesty, reality, and warmth. Renowned Canadian filmmaker Charles Officer plays a cab driver who felt like a real person.
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McDonald makes some smart choices. Split screens are used well. Kensington Market is used to full effect in the 2001 film. McDonald directed Twitch City in that same Toronto neighbourhood in 1998 and 2000. The chase scene in Union Station spoke to how everything is under one roof in the real Union Station.
A Bruce McDonald film usually has a great soundtrack. Picture Claire doesn't have that element.
We would love to see Claire's Hat to get McDonald's perspective. Our thought process was the film is a little too formulaic with some plot issues and other holes in the script. Most of the people who would see Picture Claire randomly might find the film sufficiently entertaining.
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Picture Claire is not a great film or a good film but you have seen worse films. I would recommend this film more if we could get to see Claire's Hat. Such a Canadian thing to make a documentary explaining the making of the film. Terry Gilliam did something similar for his Don Quixote film; the difference was that Lost in La Mancha got released in 2002. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was eventually made and released in 2018.
McDonald makes good use of Toronto. The chase part with the mistaken identity makes for a decent film as long as your expectations are low. The film is bad by Bruce McDonald standards and slightly above average by Hollywood standards. Better than Hard Core Logo 2 but not nearly as good as Hard Core Logo.
video credit: YouTube/Millennium Entertainment
photo credit: Picture Claire film
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