Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

MartinHafer WILBY WONDERFUL is an enjoyable and quirky film--the sort Independent film lovers will love and most others will find not particularly compelling. That's because the traditional style of film making is definitely NOT what you see here and the film is extremely hard to characterize. This doesn't bother me, as I see it as a nice "slice of life" film but some may balk because it really isn't a comedy, romance or drama--though it definitely has elements of all three genres.Wilby Island is a small resort town near Nova Scotia. The film concerns just a few residents and their struggles. While all these characters are seriously flawed, you tend to like most of them as beneath all their crazy baggage, there are shreds of decency. Some of the struggles involve a work-a-holic woman and her forgotten husband, a gay man struggling with self hatred and a trampy single mother whose daughter is struggling with either continuing or breaking the cycle of early pregnancy and desperation.I think all these story elements work well due to the gentleness of the film. The stories unfold slowly and with a touch of humor--helping to pull the viewer into a story that isn't filled with great excitement or action. As a result, the acting, writing and direction all are given a chance to stand out and be noticed! The only failing, and this may not bother everyone, is the music. The opening song is catchy but the voice is seriously grating. Also, several times during the film, they have little music video montages. A few films have done this in recent years and I suppose it is "hip" but to me it just looks sloppy and distracting. It really disrupted the flow and seemed like filler. Still, this isn't a big problem and the film's many positives greatly outweigh this--making this a film worth seeing if you are looking for some sort of alternative entertainment and not the typical Hollywood fare.

jotix100 Living in a small island where everyone seems to know everyone else, has its own rewards. It takes a certain type of person to enjoy that environment. The people of Wilby, a remote island off the Canadian mainland, are going through a dark period as there are cries how the gays have been gathering at the Watch, a remote area to do evil things, among other things. Some small minded islanders are crying foul, but is it really that bad?We are first introduced to Dan Jarvis, a closeted man, who is trying to kill himself. Whatever he tries to do, backfires on him. The chief of police, Buddy French, has a problem, Sandra Anderson, a girl he liked when he was younger, has come back to the island to settle down. Sandra wants to renew a love affair that has died long time ago. Emily, Sandra's daughter, sneaks to meet her boyfriend, who is making sexual demands of her. Buddy's wife, Carol, an uptight and driven real estate agent, wants to sell Dan's house to Mayor Fisher. Carol finds fault with the signs Duck MacDonald has done to promote a festival.All those trivial everyday life's moments in a small town are perfectly captured in this surprising comedy that has a bittersweet take on the island and the characters that we get to meet. The people in the story seem real. Nothing much happens in this island, yet, a lot of important things change the people we meet in a positive way.Daniel MacIvor has written and directed a delightful film which proves to be a delightful surprise. His screen play shows the easy pace and complicated lives in the small community where nothing seems to happen, yet, a lot goes on under its calm exterior. Mr. MacIvor has gotten a great ensemble performance from all the actors that appear in the film. Haven't we met people like the ones in the movie before?Sandra Oh, a wonderful actress, clearly shows her range the way she plays Carol French, a woman more interested in making a sale than calling an ambulance when she rescues Dan from a sure death. Rebecca Jenkins and Ellen Page, play Sandra and Emily with great ease. Their scenes together are marvelous. James Allodi's Dan is fine; he is never a caricature of a tormented man who can't see clearly. Paul Gross makes a good impression as the police chief. Callum Keith Rennie is excellent as the even tempered Duck."Wilby Wonderful" deserved a much better fate than what it probably received. This is Canadian cinema at its best. Thanks to the talented Daniel MacIvor for sharing with us this intimate portrait of an island and its people.

roland-104 This web-of-life drama with a dark comedic edge takes place in a small town on the fictional island of Wilby, somewhere off the coast of Nova Scotia. Here we get to know quite a few people, beginning with Dan Jarvis (James Allodi), a video store owner whose wife has just left him. His exquisite despair, agitation and dead serious suicidal impulses are occasioned not only by this loss but, more fundamentally, by the fact that he is being exposed, against his wishes, as a gay man, not a social status often sought in this tight little conservative village.Jarvis's forced "outing" is part of a more sweeping attack on regular gatherings of homosexuals and drug users at a waterfront park. Turns out that developers are behind the exposes. They're almost drooling in anticipation of establishing a destination golf club with surrounding upscale houses on the now public park land, once they succeed in convincing the townsfolk that the only sure way to keep unsavory characters from corrupting their young people and way of life is to get rid of that park, i.e., by selling it to them, and for a song at that.We also meet Buddy French (Paul Gross), a straight arrow local cop, and his tightly wound wife Carol (Sandra Oh), who has gotten herself into a chronic dither chasing brass rings in the world of real estate sales. Then there is Sandy Anderson (Rebecca Jenkins), the faded sex queen and mother of teenage daughter Emily (Ellen Page), whom Sandy worries will follow in her own pathetic footsteps.Rounding out the group of major players in this drama are Wilby's Mayor, Brent Fisher (Maury Chaykin), whose porcine joviality seems overdone, perhaps to cover less seemly activities, and the pivotal character Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), an Everyman clad perpetually in overalls, whose gentle manner and near omnipresence suggest that he's a sort of guardian angel placed among these humans to bail them out of trouble. In smaller roles, there's also Irene (Mary Ellen MacLean), a first rate gossip, and Buddy's police partner, Stan (played by the film's writer-director, Daniel McIvor), whose conduct is sometimes nefarious.I take the trouble to mention all of these people because the film is really more a series of character sketches than a narrative, and because the acting is, with perhaps one exception, uniformly fine. For some viewers, the exception may be Sandra Oh's over-the-top frenzied behavior during much of the film, though certainly there are ambitious control freaks out there in the real world who carry on like she does. (Incidentally, the beauty of Ms. Oh's face is captured stunningly here by DP Rudolf Blahacek, especially in profile in a scene shot while she is driving.)Some viewers might also wonder whether James Allodi's compulsive suicidal behavior as the deeply suffering Dan Jarvis is also over the top. He keeps making good faith efforts to end his life that are thwarted, sometimes in ways that make you laugh even when your intentions are otherwise. In this darkly funny depiction, MacIvor seems to have borrowed from the drollery of Bud Cort's habitual suicidal poses in "Harold and Maude."We viewers can also easily see the pain in Jarvis's face and wonder how so many of the town citizens can fail to notice or respond to him. Fact is that in real life this is common. Often people are either too self absorbed or otherwise preoccupied to see pain in others. Or if they do, they gloss over it because they are too busy or are reluctant to intrude, to mind another person's business.The film offers a wonderful quote from Mark Twain, delivered by Buddy French to Mayor Fisher: "Golf: A good walk ruined." "Wilby" was produced not by Canada's National Film Board, the source of so many wonderful movies from that country, but jointly by the provincial film boards of Nova Scotia and Ontario. The location for the film is actually not an island at all, but rather the town of Shelburne, pop. 2,000, on the southwest coast of the Nova Scotian mainland.) "Wilby" is unlikely to get wide U. S. distribution, and that is unfortunate, because it's a little gem of a movie. My rating: 8/10 (B+). (Seen on 11/28/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

budikavlan The best thing this has going for it is the mood. The quiet evocation of a small island/town is pretty much dead on, with the slightly shabby businesses, people with small-scale ambitions, and hidden strings connecting everyone and everything. There are also some excellent performances, especially Sandra Oh, Rebecca Jenkins, and Callum Keith Rennie (for once showing his awkward, charming side rather than playing another psychopath).There's both too much and too little going on, if that's possible. The various plot threads wander around before finally getting to what turns out to be the main plot. By that time, there have been a few too many scenes of people walking around while the soundtrack music plays. Some of the characters take too long to register, as well. The one who might be the most important, Dan Jarvis (the suicidal, soon-to-be-outed video store owner), never really registers at all--he never amounts to much of anything besides vague melancholy.I don't blame the actors, really.....the ones we don't know well enough simply haven't had enough dialogue to let us know them. Fewer subplots and a little less wistful scenery montage would have helped the through-line considerably.Put most simply, this has too much atmosphere to be a Plot Film and too much plot to be an Atmosphere Film. Not that it would ever have a chance to happen, but I think Wilby would have worked much better as a series.