Wilby Wonderful Just Sappy Enough

Quirky dark comedies with ensemble casts are quickly becoming a Canadian cinema cliche, but Wilby Wonderful manages to feel like much more than the same old thing. Observing the trials and tribulations of a number of loosely connected islanders over the course of a day, it's sort of like a small town Magnolia with a local scandal looming, instead of a plague of frogs. It's true of the film's theme, as well as its plot. Somewhere in the midst of running jokes about dyslexic sign painters and a man whose suicide attempts are continually interrupted, a truly touching story of love and second chances emerges. It's more sentimental than most of our nation's black comedies, but it never becomes too sappy.