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Canvas (2007)
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Reviews Counted: 20
Fresh: 15
Rotten:5
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Consensus: Canvas is a faithful portrayal of mental illness highlighted by terrific performances.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release: Oct 12, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: This debut feature from director Joseph Greco is the semi-autobiographical tale of a 10-year-old Florida boy, Chris (Devon Gearhart), who returns from a summer in Alaska to find his mentally ill mother (Marcia Gay Harden) hearing voices... This debut feature from director Joseph Greco is the semi-autobiographical tale of a 10-year-old Florida boy, Chris (Devon Gearhart), who returns from a summer in Alaska to find his mentally ill mother (Marcia Gay Harden) hearing voices in the walls again and Dad (Joe Pantoliano) up to his neck in debts and distress. Poor Chris meanwhile is growing up, discovering a passion for sewing and puppy love with a cute girl at school (Sophia Bairley). When Mom is finally dragged off to the state hospital, Dad turns his energy towards building a sailboat, but that's still just a way for him to avoid spending time with Chris, who begins to cut class and get into fights. Greco's script was obviously spruced up with input from the actors: they live and breathe these roles: Marcia Gay Harden is alternately sweet, scary, and sad as the mother, Pantoliano blends seamlessly into the role of a working class dad sanded smooth by domestic hardship, and newcomer Gearhart is aces in a surprisingly complex role; able to convey deep emotion behind a facade of stoic kid resolve, he sails the film cleanly past the rocks of contrivance and cliché and off into the sunset of first-class sensitive indie family drama. The beautiful photography wrings plenty of salt air and sunshine from the small-town Florida locale and there's a sweetener of a soundtrack with acoustic guitars and sad girl vocalists. [More]
Starring: Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, Devon Gearhart, Paul Lasa
Starring: Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, Devon Gearhart, Paul Lasa, Marcus Johns, Sophia Bairley, Darleen French-White
Director: Joseph Greco
Director: Joseph Greco
Screenwriter: Joseph Greco
Producer: Sharon Lane, Adam Hammel, Lucy Hammel, Joe Pantoliano, Bill Erfurth
Composer: Joel Goodman
Studio: Screen Media
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Reviews for Canvas
If it weren't for the terrific performances, Canvas would be a dull and lifeless film; Marcia Gay Harden explores the schizophrenic character of Mary with a judicial technique that is both compassionate and credible.
Writer-director Joseph Greco makes a nice feature-film debut telling a true, disturbing story about a 10-year-old boy struggling to cope with a schizophrenic mother.
Canvas is worth seeing for the acting, but the disease-of-the-week conventions and hackneyed visuals pretty well knock the wind out of its sails.
Greco succeeds where many others have failed in giving a real sense of what it is to grow up with a parent who's hobbled by mental illness.
Greco takes his biggest risk, perhaps, when he puts that boat in water with father and son manning the sails. It could be a mawkish scene that sinks everything that came before it, but like the watercraft that symbolizes so much, the movie remains afloat.
I can see why it was a hit at film festivals. I only hope it now gets its due in theaters.
First-time filmmaker Joseph Greco draws on personal experience for this devastating yet honest portrait of an ordinary Florida family.
Though Harden has the showier role, a subdued Pantoliano is the movie's real star. Sometimes, the quietest performances are the most powerful.
Canvas is a serious film about mental illness and a sentimental heartwarmer, and succeeds in both ways.
Canvas is a movie that rings emotionally true, despite structural contrivances and dim, washed-out color.
Small and slow-moving, and not in a way that means finely detailed and pensive.
Despite its admirable qualities, Canvas fizzles and falls into cliche.
An absence of detail means that Canvas teaches little about what it's like to be mentally ill or to know someone who is.
Greco's sincerity is so palpable that the frequent uplift feels deserved, but with just-passable filmmaking and the demeaning score, Canvas falls somewhere between powerful indie and made-for-TV diversion.
Writer-director Joseph Greco's refusal to explain the roots of Mary's madness gives John's desperate desire to summon happier days a bewitching poignancy.
The director happens to know the often maligned subject of mental illness well from his own childhood as the son of a psychotic mother, and he embraces it with genuine feeling, emotional spontaneity and absence of consciously formulated dramatic pretense.
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by: filmfemmefatale 10/10/07
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