***½/****
starring Jerry McDaniel, Beth Lisick, Luis Saguar, Rigo Chacon Jr.
written and directed by Frazer Bradshaw
by Alex Jackson The philosophical question at the centre of Frazer Bradshaw's incredible Everything Strange and New is as rudimentary and pragmatic as they come: how do you find happiness? And if you never find happiness but stumble upon contentment, is contentment going to be enough to sustain you for the rest of your days? The film begins with thirty-something carpenter Wayne (Jerry McDaniel) reflecting on the early years of his marriage to Reneé (Beth Lisick). She was in advertising and made more money than he did, and their complementary schedules allowed them to go out together every other day and have sex constantly. Then she got pregnant and her agency went belly up. Today she works freelance when she gets it but mostly just stays home with the kids. They bought a house. It's doubled in value since, but all that means is that they could borrow more against it, which they did. Now with the recession, they owe more on it than it's worth. Wayne says he's learned that kids can be fun, but it's not the fun he once had with Reneé. And so it goes. Everything Strange and New didn't only hit me at the right time in my life, it hit me at the right time in my week, in part because I'm coming off a bad case of bronchitis; I've been walking through this year's festival in a state of befuddlement. Whether consequently or coincidentally, the films have been so cerebral, so bereft of any easily-comprehensible sensual pleasures, that I often feel like I'm trying to create an ice sculpture with a snow shovel in writing about them. None more so than this one, which sports two of the saddest blowjobs ever committed to film. Bradshaw generally eschews music and gives us little action or overt conflict. A good deal of the time, Wayne's passivity inspires the camera to simply float through his home as he ruminates on his vague dissatisfaction via voiceover. The film is a deadening experience and it feels right. It feels necessary. The despair of Everything Strange and New is the despair of realizing that after thousands of years of human civilization, life has become synonymous with survival. If this isn't the same despair people experience right before they turn to religion, perhaps it should be. I suspect there are going to be people who will have absolutely no need for the film and that notion paralyzes me with jealousy.
