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Indie Film Spotlight: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD (Suzanne Crocker) 87 minutes. Opens Friday (July 17) at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See listings. Rating: NN


In 2013, Suzanne Crocker, her husband, Gerard Parsons, and their three young children left their home in Dawson City to spend nine months in a cabin in the northern Yukon. They went off the grid completely, even leaving their clocks and watches at home. The one thing they did take was a video camera, and the resulting footage has been shaped into All The Time In The World.

But Crocker’s documentary is little more than one family’s home movies thrown up on a bigger screen. Nothing went wrong, and everybody had a great time – except for Parsons, who had two minor injuries and a cold. While that makes for family bonding and warm memories, it doesn’t translate into a compelling narrative. (It’s also insufferably precious, down to a cinematography credit for Crocker’s “Trusty Tripod.”)

Editor Michael Parfit and story editors Nettie Wild and Carrie Gadsby do everything they can to turn Crocker’s footage into a series of intriguing incidents, adding voice-over by the family about how they felt in the moment throughout. 

The stated goal of disconnecting from the world is an intriguing one, but All The Time In The World doesn’t really engage with it. Other than a brief bout of cabin fever in the depth of winter (which is played for laughs), there’s no sense of how everyone reacts to their isolation. It’s just a long vacation. 

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