Local director David “Sudz” Sutherland’s first feature film, Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, sold out several showings at the Paramount last week during its opening weekend. Come again? A Canadian indie movie doing well?
Well, Sutherland’s distributor, Thinkfilm, has been trying to market Bones in new and different ways to ensure its popular (read: not just with ‘indie’ audiences or at festivals) success in theatres. Writer-director Sutherland and his wife, producer Jennifer Holness, are attempting to do something unprecedented in the history of English-Canadian cinema-namely, create a successful and popular film for a homegrown audience. While indigenous comedy has been around for years in French-Canadian cinema (Les Boys, Mambo Italiano), English Canada really hasn’t had any specifically popular films worth noting, instead favouring ‘art house’ and international films. This is a situation that Sutherland hopes to address with Bones.
“I would tend to agree with certain types of films,” he notes in a recent interview. “I mean, there’s always a homegrown audience for certain types of films, and I’m not talking about the States. In French cinema, the comedies pay for the artistic films, and by and large, look at any national cinema, and you’ll find that the ‘hits’ pay for the more esoteric fare.”
To this end, Sutherland and Holness have pushed for radical ideas in terms of creating buzz, ranging from a cross-campus film workshop tour (which recently stopped at our own Innis College, as well as York and Ryerson) to innovations such as offering $6 rebates on ticket prices-the movie’s ad in the newspapers includes a coupon that gets you the discount at the cinema. It’s that clever promotion that is helping to boost the film’s box office since it hit theatres last week.
The fact that the film opened in major theatres is also significant, as it will be playing throughout the GTA at such multiplexes as the Paramount, the Colossus, and Scarborough’s Silver City. This is extremely gratifying for Sutherland, a Scarborough boy himself, who says this type of widespread release should be taken as a positive step in ensuring that audiences can access homegrown talent. Not only is Toronto one of the most competitive movie markets in North America, but Canadian films often start out on screens at smaller venues like the Carlton and then fade out into obscurity within a couple of weeks with little distribution, little buzz and little box-office return to show for their efforts.
“And the thing is, we’re fighting for our very lives on screen,” Sutherland explains. “And so if we don’t really try to engage an audience with what they really want to see, and what kinds of stories they want told and what kind of debates they want to be engaged in, we do so at our own risk.”
Besides being a funny, engaging and highly entertaining film, Love, Sex and Eating the Bones (the latter part of the title stems from an African proverb about ‘sucking the marrow out of life’) is solidly grounded in reality. The plot is a refreshing look at taboo subjects, done in bold and hilarious ways. It’s nominally an ‘urban comedy’, but avoids the pitfalls of most of these films with an all-black cast, not going for the obvious or cheap laughs, and doesn’t shy away from its inherent ‘Canadian-ness’ (a small role by Sutherland’s high school pal Ed Robertson of the band Barenaked Ladies is rather amusing whenever he pops up on screen).
The story centers around Michael (Hill Harper), a photographer-turned security guard addicted to porn, a little problem which complicates his budding relationship with the celibate businesswoman Jasmine (Marlyne N. Afflack). But where the storyline could’ve made for a dark comedy, Sutherland keeps things light and entertaining. Additionally, by using the romantic comedy genre, the potential for garnering a wide audience improves greatly.
When asked specifically about his choice of genre and his aims of popular success, Sutherland offers: “My litmus test for any movie is, am I going to pay money in the winter [and] line up outside to see this movie?’ And I wanted to make a movie that I would do that for. And so I thought, I would definitely pay to see this movie. Especially if we made it funny.”
Love, Sex, and Eating the Bones is in theatres now. If you can’t find a coupon in your local paper, you can print one out from the film’s website: www.eatingthebones.com.
