(The independent full length feature Uncle Brian was produced in Canada and is available for online streaming to Indieflix subscribers.)
This was a rather dark dramatic film.
The story is about a young teenager named Brian (Daniel MacLean) who deals with many problems in his life. Even though he’s getting good grades in school, he can’t seem to get along socially with many people. He drinks coke and rum regularly, he has sex with his best friend’s mom, and he gets into some serious trouble when a girl he had sex with accuses him of rape. Slowly but surely, Brian learns to face his problems and deal with them as much as he can. At the same time, his sister deals with pregnancy issues and it seems like everybody hates him, thinking he’s more messed up than he should be.
The story is very interesting, but the ending was a bit too darkish and needed to be toned down a bit. Another issue is the cinematography. The camera remains stationary and at least does a good job staying on focus, but as for the beginning, the ending, and some of the action shots, it’s all over the place, making it hard to stay focused on what’s supposed to be in frame. Other than that, it’s pretty well made.
This movie shows how someone can recover from so many problems if they just give something a chance. Brian basically had to focus and participate a little more in some AA meetings in order to sort things out and realize what’s wrong with him.