Good Riddance

Or more properly, Les Bons Débarras is a 1980 Canadian film directed by Francis Mankiewicz with more than a few Brontë connections. The film screens at the Toronto Royal Cinema (608 College St.) from Nov. 30, then at the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa, Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque and Vancouver's Pacific Cinémathèque in January and February.

Fri, Sat, Sun: 7:00
Mon: 9:15
Wed, Thu: 7:00

A couple of Canadian newspapers salute this screening. First, The Globe and Mail:

Les Bons Débarras (Good Riddance), which came out in 1980, regularly finishes high in polls of the best Canadian films ever made. Such lists are suspect; most critics are ranking their memories rather than the actual films. But a new print of this canonized Canadian and Quebec classic will give viewers across the country a rare chance to see the film in the next couple of months.
The plot sounds stereotypical - a backwoods family drama with a troubled adolescent, lots of beer drinking and a tragic ending. Set in autumn in the Laurentians, the film focuses on 13-year-old Manon (Charlotte Laurier), who lives with her single mother, Michelle (Marie Tifo), and her mentally handicapped uncle, Guy (Germain Houde). They make a living delivering firewood to rich people's resort homes. Michelle, in her early 30s, is dating the town's good-natured middle-aged cop, Maurice, who provides her with restaurant meals and some cigarettes in exchange for occasional sex.
Her daughter, Manon, is absorbed with reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Her own grand passion is with her mother, in a relationship characterized by anger and clumsy tenderness. The girl reacts bitterly when her mother tells her she's pregnant with Maurice's baby ("A baby cop? You make me sick.") Manon wants her mother to herself. Men - especially Uncle Guy, who drinks, steals money and gets into trouble - are impediments. (Read more) (Liam Lacey)

And The National Post:

But because Les Bons debarras (Good Riddance), which won eight Genies in 1980 and was named best Quebecois film ever made by La Presse, has so many deeply flawed characters and so much subtextual anxiety, audiences are free to indulge in all of its aesthetic pleasures without guilt --and a new print nicely revives Michel Brault's original cinematography, in particular the heated colour scheme with deep crimson leaves fluttering across all the exterior shots as thick mustard carpets line the interior ones.
Similarly coloured, at least emotionally speaking, are the quietly intense performances. One of the most striking moments is when precocious Manon (Charlotte Laurier) lies next to her mother (Marie Tifo) in bed and reads aloud from Wuthering Heights until she falls asleep, a deceptively intimate role reversal. (Read more) (Vanessa Farquharson)

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights