DVD REVIEW [Early] . Everything’s Gone Green

by Kris   ⋅   July 29, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

A beached whale brought them together. It’s true, in Everything’s Gone Green, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo) the chronically tardy hippie salaryman with the Buddha beads and orca-shaped telephone meets Ming (Steph Song) the leather-clad artistic type at the tragic scene of a gigantic mammal carcass. They exchange some philosophical anthropological banter and part ways, Ming with her Lambo-driving beau and Ryan in his p.o.s. Volvo. Of course they are destined to meet again, yet oddly enough a bond spurs between Ryan and his object of desire’s boyfriend Bryce. Bryce (JR Bourne) is a blaring opportunist who proposes a money laundering scheme through Ryan’s brand new job at a lottery prize payout office. It’s unclear why Ryan, a 29-year old self-proclaimed posterboy for middle class contentment and luxury life rejector goes nuts with his newfound dirty money, blowing it on a sunshine yellow Mustang convertible and leather jacket, but that’s the point. Money changes everything and everyone, turning the sweet into scuzzy, the practical into wasteful, Ryan into Bryce.

Meanwhile, the opposite is happening to Ryan’s father who was fired from a job he devoted most of his life to and hated every second of. Actively searching for get-rich-quick schemes, pop finds pot, setting himself up with a basement grow farm after failed attempts to win the lottery. The awkward role reversal is somewhat saved by the wholesomeness of actors Tom Butler and Susan Hogan and the splendid art director’s tchotchke-filled details like a ceramic squirrel “vase” with fake blue daisies blooming from its butt. In fact, I love all the little notions lurking like additional characters or dossiers. For example, Ryan’s digs are peppered with plasticine postmodernism in stacking chairs, 500-load bottles of Tide and uber boxes of Japanese Pocky which he displays as sculptures. Are these reminders of his coveted middle-classisms, or throwbacks to modern convenience?

Behind all of this goofy grief is the backdrop of one of the most gorgeous places in all of North America: Vancouver. I’m sure some BCers will berate me on this statement, because the movie is also trying to say that amidst all this beauty lies a society built on opportunists like Bryce or BC bud like in Ryan’s parents’ basement or real estate scum like Ryan’s CLS 500 driving brother. I love how the cityscape is used exactly like the baubles in previous scenes and how it eventually blends into an anyday’s Pacific Northwest (could be Seattle if you squint). Whether intentional or not, it lends a bold statement.

The camera set-ups in Everything’s Gone Green shift gears when focusing on Ryan. At times, the angular “inauspicious Feng Shui”-looking low-set shots place the main character in a perilous claustrophobic container, usually at moments of heightened sardonic empowerment and/or loss at the beginning of the film. Mixed with the rather plain direction, straightforward cinematography and oft droll dialogue (with the exception of Ryan’s grossly gesticulating boss Alan [Aidan Devine]), those scenes definitely stood out in my mind. Little foreshadowing clues like Ming’s motorbike breakdown in the background of the opening credits as Ryan bicycles by are sweet touches. Overall, the sweet understated touches in this film are what charmed me through the dry spots and up until the rather blah ending. That and counting the uses for the slang “green”.

Bonus: cameo by cutie-pie Katharine Isabelle from dreamlogic fave Gingersnaps 2!

Everything’s Gone Green will be available on DVD on July 31st.

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.