September 29, 2006

Everything's Gone Green - $7

Ryan is 29 years old and in a dead end job. He is dumped, kicked out of his apartment and fired all in the same day. Faced with the lack of accomplishment and direction in his life Ryan begins to stoop to the level of some of his acquaintances and family; he begins making money in an unethical if not illegal scam. As he begins to make a little more money Ryan wrestles with questions about the world we live in and what it takes to be content.


This movie is Canadian author Douglas Coupland's first screenplay and it succeeds as a comedy. I am a huge fan of Coupland's novels where humour, drama, deep thought and outrageous situations are commonplace. The pieces were all there in Everything's Gone Green but somehow the drama and deep thought did not translate onto the big screen as well as they do in his novels. The humour was great and since this was a comedy that should likely be how it is judged but I expected a little more depth from a Coupland story. I think that the lack of depth may not have been the fault of the writing however, but mainly due to some fairly average performances by some of the supporting cast.

The main character Ryan is played well by Canadian actor Paulo Costanzo and the other major characters were performed convincingly enough to make this movie work. The biggest disappointment to me was a friend of Ryan's in the movie whose character runs a sucessful network of grow-ops. He appeared to have been written with some depth but was delivered fairly one-dimensionally.

Everthing's Gone Green is set in Vancouver and is a simple movie which is one of its charms. This movie is a step in the right direction for cinema in Canada and especially Vancouver where many movies are shot but very few are set.

I recommend this movie as an enjoyable and simple comedy that will make you laugh and especially to anyone who enjoys Coupland and has ever spent any time in Vancouver. Watch for it's release in theatres in early 2007.

I put this movie on my 'Watch It' list and give it a value of $7.

4 comments:

Jon Coutts said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Tony Tanti said...

I hope the review answers your questions.

What I didn't mention in my blog was how fun it was to be at a film festival. The two main actors and the director were there and they took questions after. It was pretty cool.

Jon Coutts said...

interesting. i've always wanted to go to a film festival.

looks like you need to add that code-recognition thing to your comments.

Tony Tanti said...

Yeah I watched the video at franco's link. Kind of intereting actually.

I will put that code recognition on.