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crack_van2006-12-01 09:49 am
sperrywink) wrote in crack_van2006-12-01 09:49 am
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Wilby Wonderful Overview
Wilby Wonderful, is a quirky, ensemble Canadian film starring a lot of the usual suspects of Canadian cinema (Paul Gross, Sandra Oh, Callum Keith Rennie, Rebecca Jenkins). It manages that seemingly uniquely Canadian feat of approaching dark and serious subject matters in a charmingly whimsical fashion successfully.
Although Wilby Wonderful is a delightful movie in its own right, as a fannish force it mostly grows out of the due South fandom. This movie is the first time Callum Keith Rennie (Ray Kowalski) and Paul Gross (Constable Benton Fraser) were on screen together since that show ended. Therefore the movie had a natural slash fanbase built in that was predisposed to love it, especially considering Callum Keith Rennie played a gay character. The wonderful thing about this is that it pulled in some fantastic writers right off the bat who could also build a cohesive, if small, fandom for the movie.
Overview:
On the DVD sleeve, Wilby Wonderful is described as:
In the small East Coast island town of Wilby, Carol French (Sandra Oh), the local realtor, is trying to sell the Mayor (Maury Chaykin) a house that belonged to her recently deceased mother-in-law. Her police officer husband Buddy (Paul Gross), is in the middle of an investigation into the town's deviant underbelly. It seems that Buddy is also about to begin a love affair with the wrong-side-of-the-tracks just-back-in-town Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins). Meanwhile, Sandra's daughter Emily (Ellen Page) isn't very happy that her mother has given her a handful of condoms to use with her new one-track-mind boyfriend. Add to the mix the apparently dyslexic sign painter Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), and MacKenzie Fisher, the Mayor's algebra-challenged young daughter, and it's just another Thursday in Wilby. But then why is Dan Jarvis (Jim Allodi) trying to kill himself in all the wrong places? Where are all the drugs suddenly coming from? And, what's Carol French going to do about that body in the closet?
While this may be a fairly good description of most of the plot elements, what Wilby Wonderful really is are three interlocking, struggling love stories. The participants haven’t figured out a way to move beyond the morass their relationships are stuck in to discover or move back into the happiness they can have in these relationships. Each of the relationships, Duck and Dan, Carol and Buddy, and Sandra and Emily, are stalled in some way.
For Duck and Dan they can't get past Dan's depression and unwillingness to see a future for himself. For Carol and Buddy, they have grown apart and each of the other person's overtures of reconciliation is treated as new bricks in the wall between them. For Sandra and Emily, both need to grow up before they can see and accept each other as independent people instead of remaining locked as dysfunctional mother and daughter. It takes the events of this day and their interactions with the other residents of Wilby to break the loggerheads on all of these relationships and as the new day dawns, each relationship has finally reached the next, hope-filled plateau. Duck says everyone just "wants to love and be loved" and the movie shows how we all struggle with this simple concept.
Main Characters:
Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie) is an Islander and Wilby’s resident painter, sign maker, and possibly all-around handyman. He may be dyslexic or he may have been given the wrong instructions, but he gets blamed for the signs which say 'Wilby Wonderful' when they should say 'Wonderful Wilby.' He used to have a drinking problem but gave it up because as he says, "alcohol agreed with me, but on all the wrong stuff." He is caught up in the trouble at the Wilby Watch and although never directly stated, it is obvious his name will be printed along with all the others in the paper. Although he doesn't like it, he seems to be coping well enough with this forced outing. Duck tends to be the moral compass of the movie and often voices the broader perspective, if in a reflective language. He is a seemingly calm, laid-back man, at least at this stage in his life, but he has fortitude and perseverance which he needs dearly when dealing with Dan Jarvis who he has a crush on.
Dan Jarvis ( James Allodi) is the suicidal owner of the Wilby video store. He isn’t originally from Wilby; he and his wife moved to Wilby for a slower pace of living. He told his wife about being caught in the gay sex scandal at the Wilby Watch and she left him and told him she hoped he rotted in hell. He isn't coping well with this or with the forced outing at all. It is the main force behind his suicidal impulses and inability to see any of the good things (i.e. Duck's interest and support or Sandra's burgeoning friendship) around him. He likes Westerns and is quiet and reserved. He is living in the town motel because he and his soon-to-be-ex wife have put their house up for sale. He spends the day trying to kill himself in various ways around town including at both his former house and Carol French's mother-in-law’s house, both of which she is trying to sell.
Carol French (Sandra Oh) is a brittle, sharp-tongued realtor. She married onto Wilby Island and still doesn’t quite fit in. She wants to be a mover and shaker and thinks being a workaholic involved in everything will get her there, although she just doesn't have the connections an Islander naturally has and thus her efforts are often not as successful as she'd like. She used to paint and it is hinted that she wasn't always quite so driven and used to be a softer, more open person. She "calls it part of another life." She recently gave up coffee which has escaped the notice of her husband Buddy because of their increased distance and estrangement.
Buddy French (Paul Gross) is married to Carol and is a Wilby police officer. He is an Islander from one of the founding families and loves the land, particularly Wilby Watch. He is an intelligent and capable police officer and he is investigating the rumors of sex and drugs out at the Wilby Watch. Unfortunately his personal life isn't as together and he is lost and confused. Buddy is more than a little depressed himself. His Mum has just died and his wife is distant. This estrangement from Carol is leading him into an affair with his former high school classmate Sandra.
Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins) is an Islander from the wrong side of the tracks who left Wilby for a number of years, but who recently came back with her daughter. She has re-opened a coffee shop, Iggy's, although the kitchen isn't quite ready for cooking yet. She tells Buddy that, "All I ever wanted was for someone to say I love you and not want anything for it." Unfortunately she hasn't found that yet and because of her promiscuity, has a bad reputation around town as the 'other woman' in multiple relationships going back to high school. Because of this bad track record with men, she has a tendency to move when things go bad and her daughter Emily is beginning to resent it.
Emily Anderson (Ellen Page) is Sandra’s high school aged daughter. She likes running and is struggling with the normal teenage issues. She is also tired of constantly moving because of her mother's string of lovers, particularly the married ones. She is angry at her Mom for beginning the affair with Buddy and knows if the affair goes wrong, her Mom will want to leave Wilby. Emily would rather stay since she has made friends with the mayor's daughter and has a boyfriend, Taylor. He is pressuring her into sex, although she is unsure. She is caught between being who she is and following what she desires and hopes for in a romantic relationship, while still not being who her mother was and defined by her mother's reputation.
Supporting Characters:
Brent, Elaine, and MacKenzie Fisher are the Mayor, his wife and daughter. MacKenzie is also Emily's best friend.
Stan Lastman is another police officer and Elaine Fisher's brother.
Taylor is Emily's Islander boyfriend.
Deena is an old friend of Sandra's and Carol's assistant/secretary.
Fandom:
By a large, large margin Duck MacDonald is the fandom's favorite character and Duck/Dan is the fandom OTP and will constitute the largest portion of my recs. It makes sense considering Callum Keith Rennie is a fan favorite and Duck/Dan is the canon gay (thus slash) pairing. There are also some Duck/Buddy, Duck/Sandra, and Buddy/Sandra stories, particularly since they all went to high school together so relationships can be fit anywhere in their history or future. For a het OTP, I believe Buddy/Carol is the leader, but, really, any fiction that does not prominently feature Duck is hard to find.
Resources:
Wilby Wonderful's IMDB page.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
isiscolo and secret_garden have taken over for pearl_o and now maintain a list of all known Wilby Wonderful stories and fanvid pages over at del.icio.us here.
.
For new stories![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ds_6degrees would be the place to go.
wilbywednesday is for Wilby Wonderful fans to produce the most awesome ever fan fiction, fan art, and other fun stuff to share with other Wilby fans every Wednesday.
Finally, the only rec list I am aware of is Isis' but hopefully people will add more in the comments.
Thanks tomer1973 and sheherazade_ii for reading through this for me.
Although Wilby Wonderful is a delightful movie in its own right, as a fannish force it mostly grows out of the due South fandom. This movie is the first time Callum Keith Rennie (Ray Kowalski) and Paul Gross (Constable Benton Fraser) were on screen together since that show ended. Therefore the movie had a natural slash fanbase built in that was predisposed to love it, especially considering Callum Keith Rennie played a gay character. The wonderful thing about this is that it pulled in some fantastic writers right off the bat who could also build a cohesive, if small, fandom for the movie.
Overview:
On the DVD sleeve, Wilby Wonderful is described as:
In the small East Coast island town of Wilby, Carol French (Sandra Oh), the local realtor, is trying to sell the Mayor (Maury Chaykin) a house that belonged to her recently deceased mother-in-law. Her police officer husband Buddy (Paul Gross), is in the middle of an investigation into the town's deviant underbelly. It seems that Buddy is also about to begin a love affair with the wrong-side-of-the-tracks just-back-in-town Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins). Meanwhile, Sandra's daughter Emily (Ellen Page) isn't very happy that her mother has given her a handful of condoms to use with her new one-track-mind boyfriend. Add to the mix the apparently dyslexic sign painter Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), and MacKenzie Fisher, the Mayor's algebra-challenged young daughter, and it's just another Thursday in Wilby. But then why is Dan Jarvis (Jim Allodi) trying to kill himself in all the wrong places? Where are all the drugs suddenly coming from? And, what's Carol French going to do about that body in the closet?
While this may be a fairly good description of most of the plot elements, what Wilby Wonderful really is are three interlocking, struggling love stories. The participants haven’t figured out a way to move beyond the morass their relationships are stuck in to discover or move back into the happiness they can have in these relationships. Each of the relationships, Duck and Dan, Carol and Buddy, and Sandra and Emily, are stalled in some way.
For Duck and Dan they can't get past Dan's depression and unwillingness to see a future for himself. For Carol and Buddy, they have grown apart and each of the other person's overtures of reconciliation is treated as new bricks in the wall between them. For Sandra and Emily, both need to grow up before they can see and accept each other as independent people instead of remaining locked as dysfunctional mother and daughter. It takes the events of this day and their interactions with the other residents of Wilby to break the loggerheads on all of these relationships and as the new day dawns, each relationship has finally reached the next, hope-filled plateau. Duck says everyone just "wants to love and be loved" and the movie shows how we all struggle with this simple concept.
Main Characters:
Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie) is an Islander and Wilby’s resident painter, sign maker, and possibly all-around handyman. He may be dyslexic or he may have been given the wrong instructions, but he gets blamed for the signs which say 'Wilby Wonderful' when they should say 'Wonderful Wilby.' He used to have a drinking problem but gave it up because as he says, "alcohol agreed with me, but on all the wrong stuff." He is caught up in the trouble at the Wilby Watch and although never directly stated, it is obvious his name will be printed along with all the others in the paper. Although he doesn't like it, he seems to be coping well enough with this forced outing. Duck tends to be the moral compass of the movie and often voices the broader perspective, if in a reflective language. He is a seemingly calm, laid-back man, at least at this stage in his life, but he has fortitude and perseverance which he needs dearly when dealing with Dan Jarvis who he has a crush on.
Dan Jarvis ( James Allodi) is the suicidal owner of the Wilby video store. He isn’t originally from Wilby; he and his wife moved to Wilby for a slower pace of living. He told his wife about being caught in the gay sex scandal at the Wilby Watch and she left him and told him she hoped he rotted in hell. He isn't coping well with this or with the forced outing at all. It is the main force behind his suicidal impulses and inability to see any of the good things (i.e. Duck's interest and support or Sandra's burgeoning friendship) around him. He likes Westerns and is quiet and reserved. He is living in the town motel because he and his soon-to-be-ex wife have put their house up for sale. He spends the day trying to kill himself in various ways around town including at both his former house and Carol French's mother-in-law’s house, both of which she is trying to sell.
Carol French (Sandra Oh) is a brittle, sharp-tongued realtor. She married onto Wilby Island and still doesn’t quite fit in. She wants to be a mover and shaker and thinks being a workaholic involved in everything will get her there, although she just doesn't have the connections an Islander naturally has and thus her efforts are often not as successful as she'd like. She used to paint and it is hinted that she wasn't always quite so driven and used to be a softer, more open person. She "calls it part of another life." She recently gave up coffee which has escaped the notice of her husband Buddy because of their increased distance and estrangement.
Buddy French (Paul Gross) is married to Carol and is a Wilby police officer. He is an Islander from one of the founding families and loves the land, particularly Wilby Watch. He is an intelligent and capable police officer and he is investigating the rumors of sex and drugs out at the Wilby Watch. Unfortunately his personal life isn't as together and he is lost and confused. Buddy is more than a little depressed himself. His Mum has just died and his wife is distant. This estrangement from Carol is leading him into an affair with his former high school classmate Sandra.
Sandra Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins) is an Islander from the wrong side of the tracks who left Wilby for a number of years, but who recently came back with her daughter. She has re-opened a coffee shop, Iggy's, although the kitchen isn't quite ready for cooking yet. She tells Buddy that, "All I ever wanted was for someone to say I love you and not want anything for it." Unfortunately she hasn't found that yet and because of her promiscuity, has a bad reputation around town as the 'other woman' in multiple relationships going back to high school. Because of this bad track record with men, she has a tendency to move when things go bad and her daughter Emily is beginning to resent it.
Emily Anderson (Ellen Page) is Sandra’s high school aged daughter. She likes running and is struggling with the normal teenage issues. She is also tired of constantly moving because of her mother's string of lovers, particularly the married ones. She is angry at her Mom for beginning the affair with Buddy and knows if the affair goes wrong, her Mom will want to leave Wilby. Emily would rather stay since she has made friends with the mayor's daughter and has a boyfriend, Taylor. He is pressuring her into sex, although she is unsure. She is caught between being who she is and following what she desires and hopes for in a romantic relationship, while still not being who her mother was and defined by her mother's reputation.
Supporting Characters:
Brent, Elaine, and MacKenzie Fisher are the Mayor, his wife and daughter. MacKenzie is also Emily's best friend.
Stan Lastman is another police officer and Elaine Fisher's brother.
Taylor is Emily's Islander boyfriend.
Deena is an old friend of Sandra's and Carol's assistant/secretary.
Fandom:
By a large, large margin Duck MacDonald is the fandom's favorite character and Duck/Dan is the fandom OTP and will constitute the largest portion of my recs. It makes sense considering Callum Keith Rennie is a fan favorite and Duck/Dan is the canon gay (thus slash) pairing. There are also some Duck/Buddy, Duck/Sandra, and Buddy/Sandra stories, particularly since they all went to high school together so relationships can be fit anywhere in their history or future. For a het OTP, I believe Buddy/Carol is the leader, but, really, any fiction that does not prominently feature Duck is hard to find.
Resources:
Wilby Wonderful's IMDB page.
isiscolo and secret_garden have taken over for pearl_o and now maintain a list of all known Wilby Wonderful stories and fanvid pages over at del.icio.us here..
For new stories
ds_6degrees would be the place to go.wilbywednesday is for Wilby Wonderful fans to produce the most awesome ever fan fiction, fan art, and other fun stuff to share with other Wilby fans every Wednesday.Finally, the only rec list I am aware of is Isis' but hopefully people will add more in the comments.
Thanks to
mer1973 and sheherazade_ii for reading through this for me.
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And ps if you don't mind: if you code my lj name it is
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I'm hoping people join the fandom as well. The movie deserves a larger following (and more fiction. :)
That would be great to have a link at the del.icio.us page!
I was just wondering as I started to prepare my recs, but it would also be great if we had a central place for WW fanvids like the wilbylinks page. I'm pretty sure I have at least one on my harddrive, but now I am going to have to hunt down who did it and where I got it and the like. Anyway, just blathering here.
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p.s. Great icon!
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Particularly since I think you are aware of more than I am and it would be great to be able to check out some more vids. I need to catch up before the 15th and fanvid reccing day.
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Wilby Wonderful newbie
Re: Wilby Wonderful newbie
Re: Wilby Wonderful newbie