TIFF Review: A Stone's Throw

When environmental activism crosses the line into eco-terrorism, has the activist become as bad as the corporations he's fighting against? In A Stone's Throw, investigative photojournalist Jack Walker (Kris Holden-Reid) shows up unexpectedly at his sister's house in a rural town in Nova Scotia after a seven-year absence. What his sister Olivia (Kathryn MacLellan) and her ex-husband Jean-Marc (Hugh Thompson) most want to know is this: Is Jack really there just to see the family he hasn't seen in so long and to renew old ties? Or is he there working on the story about the mining company that's reopened a long-closed mine to do cyanide leaching, offering the community over 100 much-needed jobs? Or perhaps to investigate the chemical plant where Jean-Marc himself works?

What makes Jack's situation even more difficult is that he's been diagnosed with a genetic, progressive and incurable retinal disease that will ultimately render him completely blind. Even now, this man who has spent a lifetime's work capturing the effects of pollution by corporations through his camera lens is seeing the world through an increasingly small aperture. Adding to the tension is Jean-Marc and Olivia's son teenage son Thomas (Aaron Webber), who idolizes Jack and is, himself, a budding environmentalist and investigative journalist. When the police come looking for Jack at Olivia's house, Thomas learns that his uncle is wanted by the FBI for eco-terrorism, and everyone begins to question Jack's intentions -- especially Jack himself.

Olivia and Jean-Marc want Jack to move on, and, especially, out of their sonThomas' life, but things have gotten complicated by Jack's budding relationship with Olivia's best friend, Waldorf kindergarten teacher and hot single mom Lia (Lisa Ray). Through his growing love for Lia, Jack begins to see the world differently, and to see the ways in which he himself has crossed the lines of morality in blind pursuit of his cause. Jack's physical blindness is a fairly obvious metaphor for his moral self-righteousness, and yet it somehow fits the story without seeming terribly contrived.

Producer Camelia Frieberg makes her screenwriting and directorial debut with A Stone's Throw. While the film certainly shows her potential behind the camera, the script isn't tight enough or compelling enough to really drive the film, and the pacing drags just enough to allow the audience's interest in Jack to start to wane. The tension there in the film doesn't really pay off; Jack is wanted by the FBI for eco-terrorism, but the local cop, who knows he's around, doesn't do much to bring him in besides occasionally drop by to ask if anyone's seen him lately. As a character, Jack is too dark and brooding to be compelling to anyone except perhaps women who like their men gloomy and depressed, which apparently includes Lia.

Frieberg set the movie in a small town in Nova Scotia, and filmed it in the town where she lives (the Waldorf kindergarten in the film is her own childrens' school), so presumably she was trying to capture the feel of small town Canadian life in the film's storyline and pacing. Maybe in Frieberg's town the local cop really wouldn't put out any more effort than that to track down an eco-terrorist; maybe the cop knows Jack personally and was reluctant to turn him in, or perhaps he has a long-standing crush on Olivia and doesn't want to be responsible for bringing her brother down. We aren't given enough information to know what motivates him, and so his inaction, as the keeper of law and order, just becomes frustrating. Frieberg does do quite well with capturing the feel of her rural setting; this is a town where everyone knows everyone else, where artistic pursuits are valued, where a small population can support a Waldorf school. It's an idyllic place, which makes the subtle effects of the chemicals from the plant, and the potential hazards of the cyanide leaching, that much more insidious. People need jobs to survive, and therefore are often willing to turn a blind eye to the environmental and health impacts of their work. That is the underlying message of the film, and Jack sees himself as the saviour of those who would not save themselves.

Webber turns in a solid performance as Thomas, showing the kind of potential Joseph Gordon-Levitt had as a young teen. With his longish hair, glasses, and passion for creating bar graphs of illnesses suffered in relation to proximity to the chemical plant where his father works, one can see how Thomas might stand out in a small town, but rather than play him as an angst-filled teenager, Webber opts for imbuing Thomas with a subtle passion fueled by his long-standing adoration of his activist uncle. Ray is a bright light in an otherwise rather gloomy film and also has the distinction of playing the only person in the film, with the exception of the children, who ever smiles. A Stone's Throw is a solid-enough directorial debut for Frieberg, and I would expect we'll see her behind the lens again, but the film ultimately drags enough, both through the pacing and the lack of compelling character arcs, to keep it from being truly memorable once it's over.