Still Mine is a movie about a bloke who wants to build a house on his own land with his own hands, and that seemingly benign, everyday desire lands that man in court. We know that the heart of the drama will be this fellow’s quarrel with authority. But Still Mine, a new feature from well-known Canadian writer/director Michael McGowan, is like aging and a country drive. It takes its sweet time getting anywhere because the view and the experience is the point. This is a film that in its storytelling heaves and shifts in ways movies rarely do these days. It doesn’t have much suspense because the outcome is a foregone conclusion and the approach is so understated, it weaves perilously close to bland and the subject matter is pure telemovie. Yet, in its quiet, slow way, it creates that wonderful illusion where we can easily imagine a life for the characters that exists outside the movie frame.
essentially a sensitive and bittersweet geriatric love story
When it comes to building things, Craig Morrison (James Cromwell), pushing 90 years and looking like it, well, he’s done this kind of thing before. He comes from hardy stock, the kind of folks where there is no sunset on know-how. The place he calls home, a little hamlet in Canada, has pretty hills and a great tradition of artisans. It is a region of boat-builders and Maritimers, where hi-tech is a porta-loo and a refrigerated truck. When it comes to wood, construction, milling, farming, and house-building, there is not much Craig doesn’t know.
But the perils of aging know no respect. Craig’s beloved wife Irene (Geneviève Bujold) is losing her memory. The house they have to themselves is big. It is cold and has steep stairs. Craig and Irene’s large brood of adult children begin to wonder out loud about their parents’ 'options’. Of course, Craig understands this is code for 'Old People’s Home.’
But Irene and Craig have been together forever. He can’t allow a separation. Besides, it offends his commitment to self-reliance. So Craig begins what he calls his 'project’. He’ll build a new house, smaller, with a view this time and better suited to their needs. Craig will do it alone, the way he’s done it those five times before; he’ll mill his own lumber and he’ll draw up no plans, because, well, it’s all in his head. Craig doesn’t say much. He doesn’t need speeches to tell us that his new house is a monument to the greatest thing in his life, his marriage.
Once Craig starts building trouble soon arrives in the form of a bureaucracy and personified by government inspector Rick (Jonathan Potts), who seems a nice enough fellow, even if he takes himself too seriously. He’s doing a job that is well-meaning: insisting on safety and standards. But Craig doesn’t follow the guidelines of compliance as set down by the Royal District Planning Commission because he’s building the way his dad taught him; and nothing the Old Man ever touched fell down or sunk. Craig is asked to stop work till the new place meets the regulation. He doesn’t, and that lands him before the court on a contempt charge. By this time Irene is getting worse. Craig has to finish the house. He’ll get the job done. Either that or he’ll end up in jail.
I wasn’t surprised to discover that McGowan was already working on a script about aging when he came across the Craig and Irene Morrison story. That’s because Still Mine’s real energy and interest lies in the fact that it is essentially a sensitive and bittersweet geriatric love story that has little to do with its 'David and Goliath’ plot set-up.
It was a smart move. The real life man vs. the system yarn – which actually occurred in the Bay of Fundy near St. Martins, a seaside village close to Saint John a few years ago – has been largely stripped of its cultural and local politics. The conflicts inherent in the material – ancient imponderables all – between old and young, big government vs. citizen autonomy, innovation vs. tradition, so well rehearsed in all media these days, aren’t emphasised, either. That’s not to accuse McGowan of a form of cowardice. It’s more a matter of proportion and character. I suspect McGowan felt that foregrounding the bureaucratic struggle would exaggerate Morrison’s situation, turning him into a rebel or a crusader. The contemporary newspaper accounts made the real Morrison and his courtroom appeal sound like it dropped out uncensored from a 1930s Frank Capra movie. 'I thought this was a free country, that we had liberties and freedoms, but I was sadly mistaken," the real Morrison told the judge. I don’t think Cromwell’s Morrison ever says anything that corny.
In many ways, it’s an actor’s movie; Bujold has the showier part. She’s playing the onset of dementia and it’s frightening and courageous and very moving. Cromwell is wonderful, especially when he’s at his most tender. There’s a gorgeous moment early on where the couple make love. In post-coital contentment, Irene says, 'That’s something that never gets old." Cromwell’s eyes do a little dance of pride.
Droll, thoughtful, and modest, McGowan’s low-key style is a bit of a metaphor for Cromwell’s characterisation and its dramatic yield is impressive. The whole movie seems to be shot wide and often in longer takes than is fashionable. The first 20 minutes is like watching a doco on farm life. It’s a technique that taps the unique rhythm of these people and their style of life. There’s no bustle and the work doesn’t look easy or especially gripping.
Yet, Craig and Irene go about their chores, as they do everything, in a mood of pleasure that says a lot about who they are; they do what needs to be done, with ingenuity and without complaint. It’s McGowan’s clever way of making Craig’s bureaucratic conflict a question of birthright and values rather than an old man’s belligerence. Morrison’s house like McGowan’s movie is a love letter to resilience.
