{"id":3116,"date":"2018-01-09T20:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T20:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/01\/09\/parkinsons-grief-and-sexuality-why-i-cant-get-this-film-out-of-my-head\/"},"modified":"2018-01-09T20:00:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T20:00:23","slug":"parkinsons-grief-and-sexuality-why-i-cant-get-this-film-out-of-my-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/01\/09\/parkinsons-grief-and-sexuality-why-i-cant-get-this-film-out-of-my-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Parkinson’s, grief and sexuality: Why I can’t get this film out of my head"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Knegt\/ CBC Arts: Point of View<\/em><\/p>\n

Kathleen Hepburn: ‘At the heart of it all, we all just want to be loved and to be seen for who we are’<\/p>\n

While the majority of Canadians are likely\u00a0more fixated on the movie awards shows of our southern neighbours than they are our own annual cinematic celebrations (myself admittedly included), this weekend marks the kick-off of a nationwide event that should help change that: Canada’s Top Ten.<\/p>\n

Showcasing a juried\u00a0selection of the country’s 10 best feature films and 10 best short films, the initiative\u00a0\u2014 in its 17th\u00a0year \u2014 is spearheaded by the Toronto International Film Festival but will tour across the country, with multiple screenings planned in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. And while I’d recommend taking in as much of the selection as you can, one film stands out for me personally: Kathleen Hepburn’s fearless directorial debut Never Steady, Never Still<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Ever since I saw Never Steady<\/em> at TIFF last year, I can’t get it out of my head. The sensitive, achingly intimate film primarily details a mother and son grappling with grief as they try to navigate their own deeply personal struggles. The former, Judy (Shirley Henderson), is battling Parkinson’s Disease, while the latter, Jamie (Th\u00e9odore Pellerin), is struggling with his sexuality as he tries to manage a grueling job in the Albertan oil fields \u2014 hardly the best place to consider one’s potential queerness.<\/p>\n

It’s a synopsis that hardly feels uplifting, but like all great films about adversity, there’s catharsis in watching Hepburn’s story. Her\u00a0own mother has been living with Parkinson’s disease for over two decades now, and it “has had a profound effect” on her\u00a0family and how they\u00a0relate to each other.<\/p>\n

“I think there is a certain beauty that comes out of those things we struggle with because it’s through this struggle that we can see our strength.”\u00a0<\/span>– Kathleen Hepburn, filmmaker<\/cite><\/p>\n

“When I was writing a script about family, it was only natural that that struggle became a part of that story,” she tells CBC Arts.\u00a0“I think there is a certain beauty that comes out of those things we struggle with because it’s through this struggle that we can see our strength.”<\/p>\n

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As for Jamie’s storyline, Hepburn says that it came “from a lot of different places” \u2014 but in terms of his sexuality, she wanted “to try and express that feeling of needing to belong, of searching for someone who really sees you no matter where that comes from, but also this idea of friends or lovers moving at different paces from one another.”<\/p>\n

“For me, Jamie’s story was about loneliness\u00a0and our desire for human connection, and how that gets wrapped up in sex and our physical desires especially when we’re young,” Hepburn says.\u00a0“I don’t think I had any intention of expressing something specific about sexuality aside from the idea that at the heart of it all, we all just want to be loved and to be seen for who we are.”<\/p>\n

Quebecois actor Pellerin (who played young Antoine in Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End of the World<\/em>) is extraordinary as Jamie, though the film’s acting centrepiece is his on-screen mother. Henderson \u2014 a Scot whose long list of previous work includes everything from the films Trainspotting<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Bridget Jones’ Diary<\/em> to series like Southcliffe<\/em> and Happy Valley<\/em> \u2014 is given quite the canvas for her talents in Judy, and Hepburn was beyond grateful to help provide it.<\/p>\n