The Fundy Film Society

Still Mine

Still Mine

Nominated for seven Canadian Screen Awards, Still Mine is an affecting and sensitive film about the bond between a man and his wife as they enter the twilight of their lives. Director Michael McGowan (Score: A Hockey Musical, One Week) delivers another deeply Canadian story, this time from the windswept farmland of rural New Brunswick.

As Irene Morrison, tenderly portrayed by Geneviève Bujold (Dead Ringers, Coma), begins to lose her memory, she and her husband Craig (Academy Award nominee James Cromwell; The Green Mile, Babe) face difficulties in maintaining their large and drafty old farmhouse. Craig decides that he will build a more manageable home for their retirement, a labour of love prompted as much by his wife’s health as it is by his own sense of mortality and his profound need to prove that he is still capable of providing for his family.

In a clash of traditional values and modern legislation, Craig soon finds himself battling against the local authorities over fine print in the building bylaws. Technicalities force him to fight for the right to complete his new home while trying to care for his ailing wife.

Cromwell, who won a Canadian Screen Award for this role, has never been more powerful or sincere than in his portrayal of Craig, a man of integrity and gentle determination; in Irene, Bujold creates an endearing woman who is both fragile and steadfastly willful. Driven by these deep performances, the story unfolds slowly and methodically as the camera sweeps from graceful landscapes to intimate interiors. The aesthetic is understated and beautiful, much like everything else about this moving film, quietly taking in small details, from the faded ghosts of picture frames on the walls, to the nuances of a fifty-year love affair.

“Still Mine is a measured but considerably moving celebration of things hand-crafted, traditional and built to last. Ultimately, the movie’s considerable inspirational heft is provided not by Craig’s up-against-the-system quixotism but his persistent individualism, the deep-seated conviction that nobody knows his land, his business, his wood or his wife anywhere near as well as he does, and he’ll go to jail before he’ll admit any differently. The point isn’t that he’s right, but that he so firmly believes he is, he’ll build a house on it.” (Geoff Pevere, The Globe and Mail)

“A pitch-perfect, deeply affecting film.” (Chuck Wilson, Village Voice)