Passchendaele Synopsis
Michael Dunne (Gross) is a Canadian soldier on the front lines of the battle fought against German forces on Vimy Ridge, France, in 1917. Though most of his fellow die from shrapnel, bullets and injuries, Dunne manages to take out a gun turret, and kills a helpless young German boy in the aftermath.
After returning to Calgary to recover from injuries, Dunne is diagnosed with neurasthenia (that's shell-chock, to the layperson), and is reassigned to the local recruiting desk, under the watchful eye of a pompous superior. As he had recovered in hospital, he became increasingly enamoured with his nurse, Sarah Mann (Caroline Dhavernas), an Albertan of German descent.
Meanwhile, Sarah's younger brother David (Joe Dinicol) wishes to win the hand of a local prominent doctor's daughter, as such wishes to prove his manhood by signing up to go to war. Alas, he has asthma, and cannot pass the physical. Despite this, he manages to find a way to the front line (with a false medical clearance by his would-be father-in-law), to the dismay of the dispossessed Sarah.
And so, Michael Dunne finds himself feeling responsible for the boy's safety on the front, lest his sweetheart be devastated by yet another loss to what is left of her family.
All of these sad series of events, while disconnected at the best of times, make up the story that is Passchendaele, the most expensive Canadian film produced to date.
Passchendaele Overall Analysis
To call this movie "too Canadian" feels somewhat unfair; if anything, Paul Gross' telling of his real-life grandfather's adventure on the French front (then onto the Belgian village of Passchendaele the second time around) is well filmed, with much effort going into the production. While the movie overall isn't as intense and fast paced as its American counterparts, the film tries too hard most times, to identify itself as Canadian, while the film's subject already implies it (i.e. not too many US army bases in Calgary, Alberta). And so, much of the dialogue feels like overexposition, and hurts the suspension of disbelief as a result.
That being said, this is a love story set during a time of war, not a war movie. Much of the film's story is set in turn of the century Calgary in the 1910's, and so it's difficult to see how so many other films out there, on shoestring budgets, manage to carry more story and essence across, than this movie, which was reportedly budgeted at 20 million Canadian dollars. Unless the building sets were made using high-end material, it's puzzling to think how the money was spent overall.
Storywise, Dunne's tale is a noble one. The problem is, the viewer may find himself wondering why a shellshocked soldier would risk his life, for a woman he's barely known out of the hospital, and has taken out on maybe two dates. Granted, the narrative may have omitted some additional courting periods, however in the brief running time reseved to that aspect of the story, it is unlikely that such a sacrifice would be made so willingly, after so short a courting period.
Gross is fine as Dunne, his emotional investment in this film being quite clear and personal. Young Joe Dinicol, who plays David, is badly miscast, and tries too hard to show resentment at his fate, and his frustration at being successfully recruited into the army. Dinicol is overacting in a manner similar to the stage, where one's voice and intonation must carry.
As for Caroline Dhavernas, she manages the role of Sarah just fine. Playing a young woman whose father decided to join the war (fighting for his native Germany), she conveys dejection and conflict as well as any high caliber actress out there. One aspect of her character stuck out in the film: Sarah's morphine addiction. Why is it that most leading ladies in recent Paul Gross directed movies, happen to have some alcohol or drug dependency? It just seemd to show that Gross' characters can't get a break, and meet some perfect, normal lass, in his scripts.
6 out of 10, for being a passable, inpausible love story, under the pretense of a dark war movie called Passchendaele.
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