When it's - 33 C outside and leaving your safe, warm cocoon seems about as appealing as sliding naked down a luge chute, you might say a silent prayer of thanks for any human contrivance that allows you to stay indoors.

But what if you had no choice but to remain inside, sucking in stale, recycled office-building air, watching the rest of the world go by on the other side of glass walls?

That's the premise of waydowntown, Calgary director Gary Burns' darkly funny satire about urban angst. It opens today at the Whitemud Crossing theatres.

Four bored twentysomething office workers in a downtown Calgary tower have bet a month's salary on who can remain indoors the longest. Thanks to Calgary's extensive Plus 15 pedway network, they can work, shop, eat and even live without ever tasting fresh air.

But what seemed like a good idea at the time has driven each of the four to the brink of their own unique emotional collapse when we join them during lunch hour on Day 24.

Tom (the excellent Fab Filippo) is having superhero hallucinations as he slowly loses his grip on reality, Sandra (Marya Delver) is on the verge of a suffocating anxiety attack, Curt (Gordon Currie) is looking for sex to take the edge off and cranky Randy (Tobias Godson) has to find some way to go outside without losing the bet.

The ensemble cast turns in a collectively stellar performance, and the writing is tight and truthful, full of funny situations and honest observations. While the film has several good laughs, most are of the dark, panicky, I'm-glad-that's-not-me variety as we watch the frenetic foursome try to keep from disintegrating.

Even the support players are great, especially Canadian film auteur Don McKellar as Tom's cubicle-mate Sadly I'm Bradley, who staples motivational messages to his chest and seems poised to take a header out the window.

Shot primarily on digital video, which only adds to the urban nightmare-like quality of the story, waydowntown is easily the best feature yet from Burns, who's previous credits are 1995's The Suburbanators and 1997's Kitchen Party.

Make no mistake, waydowntown still has that indie feel to it, but it's edgy-indie and experimental-indie and cool-indie as opposed to amateur-indie. If Burns continues to hone his craft at this rate, he'll reach the top echelon of Canadian filmmaking in no time. And audiences will have something to get way excited about.

(This film is rated AA)

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