AURORA BOREALIS
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: An aimless Minneapolis man who cannot
work out some personal problems has put his life
on hold for years as a result. Duncan Shorter
is likeable to his friends, but uses excuses and
cynicism as an justification not to get himself
a life. Some of the characterizations are of
quite good with Donald Sutherland giving a very
strong performance. But some may find the
pacing, like life in this cold town, just a
little slow. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Joshua Jackson of television's "Dawson's Creek" plays Duncan Shorter, a mid-20s Generation-X loser in process of squandering his life. His professional life has been a series of short jobs that he holds for a few weeks and then gets fed up with. His anger or his cynicism usually gets the better of him and he gets himself fired. Duncan's father, whom Duncan idolized, died when Duncan was fifteen, apparently leaving him with only two grandparents as family. Duncan's life has become what little work he can get and hanging out at the local bar with his buddies whom he has known since the fourth grade. While he is at the bar he frequently lends his apartment to his married brother for trysts.
Duncan showers all his pent-up affection on his father's parents Ronald and Ruth (Donald Sutherland and Louise Fletcher), particularly Ronald. Ronald is afflicted with Parkinson's Disease and with Alzheimer's. Ronald and Ruth live in an apartment building that caters to the elderly, and when Duncan loses a grocery store job he comes to work in maintenance at the apartment building to be close to his grandparents. There he meets Kate (Juliette Lewis), a free-spirited home assistant who cares for Ronald. She sees that Duncan seems to be frozen in time like his car gets frozen in the snow. He is, however, stable in his family life. Kate, on the other hand, is a rambler who moves from town to town as the whim takes her. She changes towns like Duncan changes jobs.
The plot, like Duncan's life, has a slow, leisurely pace. The film is 110 minutes and the plot progresses little in the first hour. Instead, Brent Boyd's script lets us get to know Duncan's family and friends in several credible and arresting scenes. Boyd writing and James C. E. Burke's makes the people very believable and well characterized. These are people the viewer will probably care for. There are some family tensions, but those too are believable. Particularly affecting is the warm relationship of Ronald and Ruth, and Duncan's struggle with his own low self-image and low ambition. But perhaps Ronald steals the show. Ronald knows he is caught in a downward spiral that he is dreading and which he tries to fight. Not many films these days make a major character of somebody who is elderly and infirm.
Most of the plot is in the third act when the characters we have come to know have to face issues of fighting or surrendering to their various problems. The situations are, however, believable, even if their conclusion may be somewhat expected. I would rate AURORA BOREALIS a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2006 Mark R. Leeper