Paul Schrader’s amazing late-career renaissance continues. Best known as the legendary screenwriter behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, as well as the writer/director of 27 feature films, including Blue Collar (1978), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapter (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), and Affliction (1997), Schrader has been on a roll this past decade, uncorking thoughtful, powerful films such as First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener. That hot streak continues with Oh, Canada, which reunites him with Richard Gere some 40+ years after their initial collaboration on American Gigolo (1980).
Based on a novel by Russell Banks (Foregone), the film tells the story of legendary filmmaker Leonard Fife (Gere), still a force to be reckoned with despite his age and declining health. He wants to tell his life story, unfiltered, before it’s too late. As the director of acclaimed documentaries, he is a political hero to many, but his past harbors dark secrets and thorny truths. Leonard agrees to sit for an extended interview with his former student Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), relating candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi, Saltburn). At Leonard’s insistence, his wife and artistic partner, Emma (Uma Thurman), bears witness to it all. His successes are held up against his failings and, as the man is cleansed of the myth, Leonard must confront what is left.
According to Richard Brody in The New Yorker, this is a film in which “one of the most accomplished and acclaimed contemporary movie directors…realizes a tale of immense complexity with bold ease.”