“A Small Fortune” (2021)
A film of two unconvincing and unexciting halves
A film of two unconvincing and unexciting halves.
Set on the Canadian coast of Prince Edward Island or, as we are integrated into a rural, rocky, grey wintery non-tourist stretch of a remote Canadian coastal village named “Skinners Pond”, we meet a bedraggled and somewhat down on his luck farmer dredging the local coast for “Moss” to sustain a low, subsistence level of living for himself and his heavily pregnant wife. He finds a bagful of cash and rather than his lucky find being the ticket away from home, the vaunted “Out West” and a life of fortune, prosperity and no immediate financial worries, he instead becomes embroiled in the unnecessary, but empty plot necessities that set up a spiral into paranoiac hallucinations and a bloody, visceral murdering rampage.
Why doesn’t he just take the money and run?
For there would be no film, obviously, but when a dead body and the bloodied wreckage of a boat soon washes ashore after the bag of money, I couldn’t help but question why “Kevin Doucette (Stephen Oates) felt compelled to do what he does with the dead body and the boat. Why does he go to such extremes as to cover up his non-existent involvement in a series of crimes that have started, or perhaps ended, with the washing ashore of a bagful of money? He has zero connection whatsoever to events leading up to his lucky discovery, so why does he do what he does? Without these actions, there would be no film, but frankly, there’s not an interesting, endearing or intriguing film here anyway.
This 91 minute film from debut writer and director Adam Perry is based upon his short film/story entitled A Blessing from the Sea and essentially comes in two halves split by a very definitive “fade to black”. Before the fade you have one half of a film depicting “the hardest working man I know” trying to eke out a living against the odds as well as the passage of time. Trying to support his heavily pregnant wife “Sam Doucette” (Liane Balaban), his secret and lucky find only presents problems within a small community that knows everyone else’s business and a corrupt Police Department only legitimised by its newest recruit, the raw, meticulous innocence of “Susan Crowe” (Andrea Bang). The bagful of money has an owner, the owner has a designated bagman and through the prism of the Senior Police Detective and the island’s oldest resident who’s cackling laughter and good hearted nature perfectly fits a life beside a rocky sea, the second half of the film bloodily demonstrates the repercussions for someone, anyone, who happens to have a bagful of another man’s money.
From an intriguing, if plot holed first half of a film we dive headlong into an entirely separate film after the fade to black and perfectly in keeping with a first half that had a building sense of dread but nothing more. Standout performances have already been noted but special kudos is reserved for Andrea Bang for changing the tone of the film and giving it a degree more humility and humanity, and the central roles had a touch of the madness and melodrama of the protagonists in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers from 2012. The ending had echoes of Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur from 2011 and the overall theme of a bagful of money falling into inept hands has the look of a Coen Brothers film from any age.
I just found A Small Fortune to be an empty film of two empty halves.
I bet they don’t put this quote on the promotional posters!
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (300+ individual films) within my archives from which to choose:
“Resurrection” (2022)
Disappointing and disturbing psychological horror.medium.com
“Nobody” (2021)
“They say God doesn’t close a door before opening another”.medium.com
“Nomadland” (2020)
Heart breaking study of life after death.medium.com