'One Week' won over 'Watchmen'

I can certainly understand why most people, after a tough workweek dealing with the boss and hearing about the dismal global financial crisis, would choose the escapism of caped crusaders over the sad, simple story of a young man reacting to being told he’s got terminal cancer and very little time to live. However, despite the heavy themes of death, disease and mortality, the story is a deeply hopeful one about making moments matter and how one can attempt to live an entire lifetime in a single week.

Michael McGowan’s ”One Week isn’t really all that original as a subject matter. Imminent death and what someone would do when faced with it has certainly been tackled before in a number of movies, but this one is humorous and tongue-in-cheek and light on its feet and unabashedly Canadian in a way that I’ve personally never seen before.

Featuring Joshua Jackson (yes, of Dawson’s Creek fame; quit with your snickering, I was a fan of that show) and Liane Balaban (recently seen in Last Chance Harvey, ”One Week” is a quietly understated film that chooses to tread lightly and let the vast landscape of our beautiful country take centre stage. No Canadian film has used the pretence of a motorcycle road trip to allow us a glimpse into the Canadian west to such a degree before. This movie is about trying to make your life matter and questioning your compromises, but it’s also a love letter to a country that is so understated about its patriotism and so diverse from coast to coast that it refrains from bragging and boasting about its natural charms.

Sure, it’s cheesy and sentimental at times. Yes, it uses cheap tricks like the country’s “Largest landmarks” to contrive a way for Jackson’s Ben Tyler to stop and snap away at the biggest chair and the biggest dinosaur and the biggest hockey stick or whatever else he comes across…, but there’s no disguising the sheer magnitude of the Rockies and the blinding beauty of the northern lights. Shot from Toronto to Tofino (all the way to the West Coast of B.C.), viewers go along for the ride and take in the vast beauty of the Canadian landscape – some for the first time and some simply reminded of what is sometimes taken for granted.

The music that accompanies Ben as he drives across the country is also understated and quintessentially Canadian. The Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts, Stars, Joel Plaskett, Patrick Watson, Emm Gryner are but a few artists who lend their considerable talents to the film. Campbell Scott’s acerbic and understated third-person commentary is also a vital part of the film’s credibility.

By the time we witness Ben taking in the Pacific Ocean and hear a pair of German tourists exclaim in their heavy accent “you are living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world” you believe it – as cheesy as it all is- and are compelled to reply – just like Ben does, “I know.”

While watching the movie, and as someone who routinely views foreign films, I kept asking myself “How would this movie appear to someone who’s not from here? Would they get the jokes and references that are uniquely Canadian; like Tim Horton’s Roll up the Rim coffee cups and Ben’s fascination with the Stanley Cup? But, at the end of the day, and despite its earnest and unabashed love for all things Canadian, One Week is ultimately about a person’s quest to live the best life he can live, to fulfill his untapped potential and to find a way not to look back on his existence with regret. Who hasn’t felt that existential crisis looming in the foreground, as we questioned what constitutes a good life and how do we make it all matter? These are universal themes that resonate with all of us, irrelevant of where we were born, where we live and where we eventually take our last breath.