Saturday is Valentine’s Day, and I hope to all that is holy you aren’t planning a Fifty Shades Of Grey date night. Seriously, please don’t do that. You’ll get a rash. Let’s consider some other options, shall we?
The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema is screening Hal Ashby’s classic April-November romance Harold And Maude at 6:30 pm, ostensibly as part of its ongoing Back To The Bloor retro series. But we all know what’s really going on this is a perverse little V-day present. And good for them for offering it, because Harold And Maude really is the best kind of perverse.
Over at The Royal, they’re letting viewers choose the mode in which they want to mark the holiday: you can go all nostalgic and ironic with shows of Dirty Dancing at 4 pm and 6:45 pm, or you can swoon into Wong Kar-wai’s sublime, erotically charged In The Mood For Love at 9 pm.
If you want to see something that isn’t tried, tested and true – but still has something of a romantic vibe – Alex Pugsley’s dramedy Dirty Singles makes its Toronto premiere this weekend at the Revue Cinema – screening Saturday at 9:00 pm in a special “Meet The Filmmakers” event, which will be licensed.
Shot in Toronto during a winter that was clearly far less brutal than this one, Dirty Singles follows a handful of friends (Spun Out’s Paul Campbell, Copper’s Alex Paxton-Beesley, The Listener’s Ennis Esmer, Super Fun Night’s Lauren Ash, Rookie Blue’s Jefferson Brown and Melissa Hood, a veteran of The Fishing Trip, Flashpoint, Murdoch Mysteries) as a series of betrayals and breakups forces them to recalibrate all of their relationships.
It’s modest in scale – writer/director Pugsley very clearly called in a lot of favours to get the thing made – but it’s nicely attuned to the rhythms of the city, and the awkward social dynamics that result when uncoupled people find their friends taking sides or losing access to their favourite restaurants. And Ash and Esmer are quietly terrific as a couple who’ve been together since high school and don’t quite know how to relate to one another as the adults they’ve become. Both are currently up for ACTRA awards (Outstanding Performance – Female and Outstanding Performance – Male, respectively) for their work.
If you’ve already made plans for Valentine’s Day, Dirty Singles screens again Sunday at 7 pm and returns for two more shows next weekend: February 21 at 9 pm and February 22 at 9:30 pm.
One last thing: I was also going to direct your attention to Telefilm Canada’s special free screening of Albert Shin’s excellent new drama In Her Place, but it’s already sold out. So instead, I will point you to Rad Simonpillai’s review and Q&A with Shin, and suggest you pay the nine bucks to see it in regular release at the Carlton sometime this week.
Maybe not on Valentine’s Day, though. It’s not that kind of picture.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
