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Sitting On The Edge Of Marlene

SITTING ON THE EDGE OF MARLENE (Ana Valine). 96 minutes. Opens Friday (March 20). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN

Where to watch: iTunes


Looking at our recent movies, you’d suspect that Canadians suffer from mommy issues.

Consider Sarah Gadon’s spectral mother in Map To The Stars or Xavier Dolan’s entire oeuvre. His suffocating influence looms over director Ana Valine‘s feature debut, Sitting On The Edge Of Marlene, in which Suzanne Clément plays a wine-and-pill-addled matriarch who resembles five Dolan characters spun into one.

Marlene is a drama queen in constant emotional flux, threatening to blow down the straw house the film constructs around her with every maniacal laugh or violent roar. Paloma Kwiatkowski is a far more welcome presence as her vulnerable daughter Sammie, a teen who can’t decide whether to take charge of the household or seek shelter elsewhere.

Marlene and Sammie are also slick con artists, a distracting detail that could easily have been replaced by something less conspicuous. Clumsy, unconvincing scenes show Marlene and Sammie relieving victims of their cash and jewels.

Valine does better in smaller comic moments anchored by Kwiatkowski. Sammie’s frustrated attempts to escape either through suicide or Jesus are handled with a light touch and feel genuine and quirky, very different from the heavy mugging going on the rest of the time.

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