Violet (2000 film)

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Violet
Directed byRosemary House
Written byRosemary House
Produced by Mary Sexton
Starring Mary Walsh
Peter MacNeill
Andrew Younghusband
Susan Kent
Cinematography Ivan Gekoff
Edited byTrevor Ambrose
Music byPaul Steffler
Production
companies
Dark Flowers
Alliance Atlantis
Release date
  • August 27, 2000 (2000-08-27)(FFM)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Violet is a Canadian comedy film, directed by Rosemary House and released in 2000. [1] The film stars Mary Walsh as Violet O'Brien, a 54-year-old widow who is convinced that she is going to die within the next year because her parents and her older brother all died at age 55. [2]

Contents

The cast also includes Andrew Younghusband as Violet's son Carlos, a gay university professor visiting from his academic job in Montreal and trying to teach everybody to speak Italian; Barry Newhook as her son Rex, a deadbeat musician; Susan Kent as her daughter Ramona, a potter; and Peter MacNeill as Rusty, a hired hand with a romantic interest in Violet; as well as Berni Stapleton, Janis Spence, Raoul Bhaneja, Janet Michael, Maisie Rillie, Sherry White, Brian Hennessey, Ron Hynes and Jody Richardson in supporting roles. [3]

Distribution

The film premiered at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival, [4] and was subsequently screened at the 2000 Atlantic Film Festival. [5]

Due to the challenges facing independent films in that era, House bought back the film's commercial distribution rights from Alliance Atlantis, and independently organized a commercial run beginning in St. John's in November and expanding to the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver markets in December. [6]

Critical response

Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail wrote that "the results are wobbly. There are moments, near the beginning of the film, when Walsh appears to be the main character in a Scandinavian identity-crisis drama. By the conclusion, however, Violet turns into a madcap farce, with a dozen subplots resolving all at once. Predictably, the pacing from scene to scene is wildly uneven and the performers are occasionally required to make impossible shifts in tone, from sitcom wisecracking to tearful confessions. The underlying fault here is House's desire to do too much at once." [3]

Scott MacDonald of the National Post wrote that "tt's amiable, amusing stuff mostly, with a lot of very appealing performances, but it's also a very slim premise for a feature. When House resorts to cartoon subplots involving a horrid relative's comic attempts to bump Violet off for an inheritance, the strain starts to show." [2]

For the Toronto Star , Geoff Pevere wrote that "sometimes it works, as director House draws uniformly likeable performances from her large cast, and sometimes you just wish everybody would get off their complaining arses and get on with it. At least there's no mystery why, living with this lot, Violet would take to her bed for a year. Too often, this movie leaves you envying her." [7]

Awards

Tom Ronan, Daniel Pellerin, Brad Thornton and Brad Zoern received a Genie Award nomination for Best Overall Sound at the 21st Genie Awards. [8]

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References

  1. ↑ Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. ISBN   1-894073-21-5. p. 232.
  2. 1 2 Scott MacDonald, "Fifty-five is a dangerous age". National Post , December 1, 2000.
  3. 1 2 Liam Lacey, "Comedy and crisis on The Rock". The Globe and Mail , December 1, 2000.
  4. ↑ Bill Brownstein, "On Sunday, Life, the dance, goes on". Montreal Gazette , August 25, 2000.
  5. ↑ Dana Gee, "Variety of films at Atlantic fest: From star vehicles to local indies, everything's there". Halifax Daily News , September 6, 2000.
  6. ↑ Mark Vaughan-Jackson, "Violet to greet audiences". The Province , November 12, 2000.
  7. ↑ Geoff Pevere, "Violet is blue". Toronto Star , December 1, 2000.
  8. ↑ Lacey, Liam (December 13, 2000). "Maelstrom storms the Genies". The Globe and Mail . Archived from the original on February 11, 2018. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
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