Childstar Is The Perfect Canadian Movie

The specter of America looms large in Canadian life and few artists of any genre have been able to capture and explore this fact quite like Don McKellar.

In Roadkill (which he co-wrote with director Bruce McDonald), McKellar played a serial killer who bemoaned the notion that to make it big you have to move to the States.

When Hollywood was busy releasing not one, but two flicks about America saving the world from total annihilation, McKellar's debut feature, Last Night, provided the perfect antidote. Instead of cheesy heroics and jingoism, it offered a funny and human look at the last day on earth.

Roger Ebert once said that to understand the difference between Canadian and American cinema, you only had to compare Last Night to Armageddon. In Childstar, McKellar tackles the theme of an American in Canada on a grand scale. When struggling Canadian independent filmmaker Rick Schiller (McKellar) is hired as a driver for 12-year-old American sitcom star, Taylor Brandon Burns (Mark Rendall), the audience is treated to a culture clash on both a literal and metaphorical level.

Taylor, in Toronto to shoot a cheesy and jingoistic movie about the President's rascal son saving his dad from terrorists, is a spoiled and jaded product of the Hollywood star system. Metaphorically, he represents the system itself. We're not just watching Taylor run amuck in Toronto, we're watching American culture given free reign in our home and native land.

On a satirical level, Childstar is near brilliant in its execution. The interactions between Hollywood and Hollywood North are sharp and funny. Everything from the American Presidency ("One idiot and blow job ago, that used to mean something," declares Dave Foley as a producer) to Canadian health care are addressed with McKellar's trademark sense of wry and smart humour.

The film is just as successful as a drama. While the satire in Childstar is often biting, it never sacrifices the underlying sadness and humanity of Taylor's plight. As a child star teetering on the edge of puberty who's about to be chewed up and spit out by the system that made him, Taylor is also a sad and bittersweet figure. The film never forgets this as it explores the highs and lows of his unnaturally mature life.

McKellar handles the difficult balance between satire and drama with ease. This film is darkly funny without ever being vicious and human and moral without being preachy. Childstar cements McKellar's reputation as a god of Canadian film.