“Seems like at some point in time, we’ve both been mistaken for Indians…”
It’s easy to forget in this increasingly globalized world that for most of human history, people typically lived and worked their whole lives within a few square kilometers of where they were born. Exploration was highly unusual and journeys like Marco Polo’s from Italy to China were one of a kind.
These days, we’re often never more than a zoom call or non-stop flight away from the other side of the earth. Advances in travel and communication technology has allowed mass migrations to criss-cross the globe and allowed various cultures to intermingle and grow together. This relatively recent phenomenon has proved highly beneficial in places like my home country of Canada, where unless you are a member of a First Nation, chances are you’re only a generation or two away from being connected to some far-flung locale (Scotland and Ireland in my case). Still, being of distant or mixed heritage can lead to its own forms of drama which is eagerly mined in Toronto-based director V.T. Nayani’s latest work, This Place.
Young Mohawk woman Kawenniióhstha (Devery Jacobs) gets off to a foul start on her new life in Toronto when her personal notebook goes missing at a laundromat. Luckily, it finds its way back to her in the form of Malai (Priya Guns), a Tamil immigrant attending school while living with her older brother Ahrun (Alex Joseph). The two women swiftly hit it off as the two deal with their issues of mixed race families and cultural displacement, with their friendship soon blossoming into love.
But they are also dealing with their own unique set of daddy issues, Kawenniióhstha having never met her father Behrooz (Ali Momen) due to her mother (Brittany LeBorgne) having concealed her existence from him and Malai running out of time to reconcile with hers (Muraly Srinarayanathas) as his time runs out due to terminal cancer. There’s a lot of angst to deal with and less than 90 minutes to do it.
This Place has a lot on its mind and does a decent job of relating its themes with a decent mix of overtness and subtlety. The cast is up to the challenges the script throws at them with Devrey Jacobs positively shining in every scene she’s in with Priya Guns capably balancing the dynamic out (despite some awkward line readings). Support from the more veteran actors is reliably strong across the board.
The beautifully rendered film has a habit of introducing big questions, but not investing the time or energy to really explore them. The plot points of Malai returning to see her homeland of Sri Lanka and Behrooz being banished from his daughter’s life over issues of Indigenous “blood quantum” are compelling ones, but the film fails to deal with them head on (especially the latter which leaves the uncomfortable issue of xenophobia among indigenous communities hanging in the air).
While this may get me uninvited from the upcoming VQFF, I admit to being rather puzzled at the romantic angle between the two leads. It doesn’t hurt the story, but doesn’t particularly add to it either, never truly intersecting with the character’s personal dramas (the only other character who finds out is Ahrun who promptly shrugs it off). The lack of drama afforded to an LGBTQ relationship on screen could be taken as a sign of societal progress, but perhaps also a sign of box-ticking.
Whether the film succeeds might depend on the audience. There’s a lot of nuance aimed at specific communities, but a lot of it translates to universal experience as well. It’s just a shame that it isn’t all tied together more effectively.
6.5/10
This Place screens theatrically in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Scarborough on July 7