Cole Chambers (Richard de Klerk) is an aspiring writer living in the small British Columbia town of Lytton. While the community of 350 may lack the speed of the big city, it nonetheless provides intriguing source material for the stories that fill Cole's notebook. Hoping to gain experience, he enrols in a writing course at a university in the city, a three-hour drive each way. In class he meets Serafina (Kandyse McClure), a black woman who lives with her wealthy and controlling parents. Attracted to the possibility of escape that the other offers, Cole and Serafina start an affair few close to them understand. However, Cole's responsibilities at home include helping his sister Maybelline (Sonja Bennett) run the family gas station and store, as well as keeping her husband, Bobby (Chad Willett), from beating her or Rocket (Jack Forrester), her son from another relationship. Forced to work at the station, Cole feels his chances of evading a certain future for one of unknown promise are beginning to fade, and he must take drastic steps to change directions.
Cole is an intense and insightful drama from director Carl Bessai and writer Adam Zang. Bessai turns his lens from his typical urban setting to more rural surroundings, and finds both beauty and pathos. Using the town of Lytton as a character itself, Bessai paints an authentic and honest portrait of small-town Canadian life. He also coaxes stirring performances from his cast: de Klerk and McClure anchor the film with their casual intimacy, while Forrester makes a strong debut as the young Rocket. But most searing is the go-for-broke performance by Willett, whose riveting and at times terrifying Bobby embodies the film's tension between hope and despair.
Cole is Bessai's most assured movie yet. Expanding on familiar themes like identity, he uses the film's out-of-town setting to explore how place and race influence our sense of self. In the divides between urban and rural and between privilege and disadvantage, Bessai and Zang unearth optimism, both in love's ability to transcend social obstacles and in the transformative potential of creativity. At times challenging but ultimately life-affirming, Cole is a polished and mature work from one of Canada's most active and engaging filmmakers.
Jesse Wente
Carl Bessai was born in Edmonton and studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design and York University in Toronto. He has worked extensively in film and television as a cinematographer, writer, producer and director, and has directed several documentaries. His feature films are
Johnny (99),
Lola (01),
Emile (03),
Severed (05),
Unnatural & Accidental (06),
Normal (07),
Mothers&Daughters (08) and
Cole (09).