PLOT: The staff and clients of a seedy motel & restaurant in downtown Niagara Falls demonstrate that the honeymoon is so over in that tacky tourist town.
Just a casual stroll from the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, the belly of the beast is growling in the film Niagara Motel.
This is the Niagara Falls that you never see in the Ontario government's tourist brochures or in insipid travel promos on TV, including the Australian one that punctuates the beginning of the film during the credits.
Instead, set in the seedy motel & restaurant that gives the film its name, this is a Canadian slice-of-life that is hardscabble, absurd, tragic and funny. You laugh to keep from crying. There is nothing romantic about this picture.
The skein of intersecting plot lines involve both staff and clientele. The principals include a professional twosome (Wendy Crewson and Peter Keleghan) who are so down on their luck that she contemplates prostitution and he considers suicide. Then there are the young lovers (Anna Friel and Kris Holden-Ried) who are trying to win their baby back after a spiral into crime, drugs and destitution.
At the restaurant, a pregnant hottie waitress (Caroline Dhavernas) fends off an obsessed stapler salesman (Tom Barnett) while juggling phone calls from her former Quebecois lover (Normand Daneau) and negotiating a pornstar career with a sleazoid (Kevin Pollak).
Also crucial in the scenario are the hapless social worker (Janet-Laine Green), the yeah-so-what prostitute (Krista Bridges), the insane motel proprietor (Damir Andrei), his long-suffering daughter (Catherine Fitch) and, most critically, the drunken, mind-numbed receptionist-janitor (the wonderful Craig Ferguson). He arrived as a Scottish tourist on his honeymoon - and never left because his new wife fell off the Maid-of-the-Mist into the churning water.
Based on playwright George F. Walker's six-part play cycle, Suburban Motel, and adapted for the screen by Walker and his collaborator Dani Romain, Niagara Motel is an ensemble piece with spirit, vitality and a heavy dose of dark, twisted humour. But, at 90 minutes, it fails to resolve most of its story lines in any satisfactory way. You have to be content with ambiguity, even messiness, just like in real life.
The film was shot on location in Niagara Falls and, oddly perhaps, in Manitoba locations by English cinematographer Ian Wilson (who composed Edward II for maverick Derek Jarman and and shot The Crying Game). Niagara Motel looks gorgeous, even in its seediness.
It is well-acted by the entire ensemble, with a shout-out specifically to Crewson, who does pathos with the best, and Ferguson, whose stunned look masks the pain churning up inside. Pollak is hilarious as the porn purveyor.
Bringing everything together effectively, if without final resolution, is Gary Yates (Seven Times Lucky). He once again shows his skill at making the grim side of life seem interesting and even beautiful.
BOTTOM LINE: While episodic and without any real resolution to its intersecting stories, Gary Yates' film buzzes with excitement and pathos, making it worth the watch.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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