BY MIKEY MIGO
It was the middle of the afternoon and I flipped through the channels. I ended up watching the end of a random movie I’ve seen a random amount of times on Sundance. My laziness paid off. I didn’t feel like turning the channel when another movie was coming on. So I left this mystery movie on and gave it an open mind. The movie ends up being “One Week”, a 2008 Canadian film. I was interested from the start because of the look of it. It just looked cool and interesting. We hear Campbell Scott’s narration of the movie in such a strong voice that you can’t help but feel a need to pay attention to what’s on the screen. Honestly, without his narration I don’t know if I’d have been drawn in as much at the start. The movie stars Joshua Jackson, the dude from Fringe and Dawson’s Creek, as a normal dude who right at the start of the movie finds out he has cancer and is going to die within a few years. This freaks him out and he just starts running. He ends up meeting an old man selling an old Norton motorcycle. He buys the motorcycle and pretty much gets on it and just rides. What happens after this is him exploring the landscape of Canada. His fiancée keeps calling and checking in, naturally freaking out over the events at hand. His family and loved ones get in on the “what the eff, dude! Come home!” train, but he just wants this time to collect his thoughts, come to terms with his fate, and live life spontaneous and wander before it’s too late. During his journey we hear a lot of Canadian rock music, which is thankfully a lot better than Nickelback and Bare Naked Ladies. To cover all the people he encounters and small life lessons he absorbs would be to spoil the movie because really that’s what this movie is all about. It’s the small things that count and even if you’re forced to by pending doom, it’s worth looking around. Yeah, whatever. That’s what I thought the point was at least. Regardless of what moral and deep meaning you take from it, you’re going to get something out of watching this. It’s not going to spoon feed you a plot, but share moments with you of genuine human nature. If you’re a fan of independent film this is one of those movies that represents why. It’s bleak, but open enough to let you get lost in it. It’s not like definitive or anything, but it’s a solid movie. It wasn’t a movie that made me have any real emotion. I didn’t laugh, I didn’t cry, and I didn’t get mad. Yet, oddly I cared. The movie plays in front of you in a way that allows your brain to wander within the movie’s vast area. There’s a lot of montages, but I appreciate the efforts of everyone involved. I’d not watch it again, but I’m not upset I spent the time with it for one go around. Canada looks nice. C+
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