Wildhood **** (2021, Phillip Lewitski, Avery Winters-Anthony, Joshua Odjick) – Movie Review

The beautiful, heart-warming 2021 Canadian gay romantic coming of age film Wildhood stars Phillip Lewitski as teenager Link, who meets the two-spirit powwow dancer Pasmay when he takes his younger half-brother on a journey to find his long-lost mother.

Writer/ director Bretten Hannam’s 2021 Canadian dramatic gay romantic coming of age film Wildhood stars Phillip Lewitski as late-teenager Link, who lives with his toxic, abusive white father Arvin (Joel Thomas Hynes) and younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony) in a rural Canadian east-coast trailer park. The boys go on the run after Link is beaten by the father and then discovers his Mi’kmaw mother Sarah could still be alive. They meet the openly gay two-spirit powwow dancer Pasmay (Joshua Odjick) and reluctantly accept his offer of help and a ride.

The journey across Mi’kma’ki, Nova Scotia, to try find the mother, and for Link to reconnect with his indigenous roots and find love with Pasmay, is paved with many, many obstacles, but Pasmay proves an honest and true guide to Link.

This is a lovely, heart-warming, beautiful film, with sincere, believable performances by the three boys. Wildhood offers exactly the healing experience its director promises. There are a few tough moments, an intimate romantic Brokeback Mountain-style love-making in a waterfall, some harsh words spoken and actions taken, balancing some sentimentality, just a little sentimentality. On the whole, the tone is tough and realistic, the dialogue and scenario are credible, persuasive even, the characters likeable, and their quest irresistible.

It feels fragile at times, but gets strong again, and stays on the path. You think you know how it’s going to end, or at least you hope you do. And it does! It’s no Brokeback Mountain after all. It’s not a wallow in tragedy and despair, it’s hope for our times in a time with very little hope.

Despite all Bretten Hannam’s skills, it wouldn’t work if the three actors weren’t up to it, and they are superb, fearless and free.

Wildhood is an expansion of Hannam’s short film Wildfire, winner of the award for Best Short Film at the Screen Nova Scotia awards in 2020. Wildhood’s screenplay won Telefilm Canada’s Pitch This! competition at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, and was funded by Telefilm Canada in 2019. It was shot in summer 2020 in the Windsor, Nova Scotia area. The film premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 10, 2021.

The cast also includes Michael Greyeyes, Savonna Spracklin, Jordan Poole, Samuel Davison and Steve Lund.

Bretten Hannam says: ‘Wildhood is a story ripped from the scars of my youth. I’ve been searching for family and heritage since I was little. The pain and anger of growing up as a two-spirit person without them was only eased by my relationship with the land, the animals, my grandmother, and other elders. I’ve spent three decades reconnecting, reclaiming, and healing. Wildhood is the culmination of that journey.’

© Derek Winnert 2022 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com