Braff plays aggressively against type as a scruffy American with an expired visa, dealing drugs from his dingy apartment in Montreal’s Chinatown. Braff and Blais’s characters are involved in a car crash that spins their lives off in new, unexpected directions.

Here’s the trailer:

The High Cost of Living is seriously dark, in a tradition of bleak Canadian movies like The Sweet Hereafter and Crash (the one with the autophilia and without Brendan Fraser). Men With Brooms, it is not. It’s also a bit dull–not enough happens to satisfactorily fill the film’s 93 minutes.

In looking at film and television (and theatre and radio, I suppose) this year, I’m principally interested in how Canadian a movie or show is. I’ll provide a bulleted list of Canadian elements, and then rate its overall Canadianess out of five. Five poutines, that is.

How Canadian was this movie?

The High Cost of Living was this Canadian:

• Though the city is never explicitly named, it’s set in Montreal.
• Roughly half the dialogue is in English, and half is in French.
• People use Canadian money.
• It snows.
• The film subtly criticizes the Canadian medical system.
• An American discusses the differences between Canada and the US.
• An American star slumming it in a recognizably Canadian film, reinforcing our inferiority-complex about homegrown films.

For these and other reasons, I’m giving The High Cost of Living three out of five poutines.

Poutine photo by Rosanna Mignacca.

Finding Canadian-made household goods has been a challenge, but switching toothpaste and deodorant is, by any standard, pretty much a foamy latte problem. The subsequent months–clothing and investments–have proved interesting distractions more than anything. There’s plenty more to learn in all three categories. However, April is where, to reference a famous American movie, the speeder bike hits the redwood tree.

I love going to the movies. Attending a weekday matinee by myself is one of the sweetest joys of my self-employed life. And I go to a lot of movies. In 2006, I saw 61 films in the cinema.

How many of those were Canadian? None, I’m afraid.

That’s not because I hate Canadian movies. There simply aren’t that many to see in the cinema. At any time in Vancouver, there are zero to one Canadian movies showing in the theatres. Those that are shown are often “good for me”–they’re the granola of movies. I don’t mind these movies, but it’s always an extra effort to go to them.

So, switching to only movies from the Great White North is going to be a sacrifice.

Everything Night in Canada

I don’t actually watch that much television. I’m an ardent Canucks fan, so I see most of their games. I also watch the occasional English soccer game.

After that, though, I download nearly all of my TV. Those shows are either middle-brow dramas like “Dexter” or “True Blood”, or middle-brow comedies like “Community” or “30 Rock”.

Am I loyal to any Canadian television dramas or comedies? Nope. Is that because most Canadian television can’t compare to the best American shows? I’m afraid so.

The saving grace, at least for a few months, is hockey.

What’s Canadian?

In discussing this month, people have been interested in  talking about the rules. How will I identify Canadian movies and television? Does Battlestar Galactica qualify because it was shot in Vancouver with a bunch of Canadian actors? Is Juno Canadian because it’s directed by and stars Canadians?

Others bring up the Canadian Content question. Will I just refer to the CRTC’s list of approved programs? I looked into the qualifications for CanCon Television (the CRTC doesn’t oversee movies), and the requirements are pretty byzantine. Here’s the summary provided on their site:

• The producer must be Canadian and is responsible for monitoring and making decisions pertaining to the program
• The production earns a minimum number of points based on the key creative functions that are performed by Canadians
• A minimum percentage of program expenses is paid for services provided by Canadians or Canadian companies

I could go the CanCon route, but there’s actually a simpler criteria. It’s like that old maxim about pornography: we know it when we see it. Danger Bay? Canadian. Battlestar Galactica. Not so much. One Week? Canuck. Juno? Nice try.

That approach may seem overly simple, but I think it’ll work just fine. What do you think? Do I need a more sophisticated approach than “Canadians can spot a Canadian production a mile away”.