Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Two Lovers and a Bear

(Canada, 2016)

Tatiana Maslany grew up in one of the least inviting cities in the world, in my opinion: Regina, Saskatchewan. She knows something about cold. She has said that she used to walk to school backwards so the wind would not frostbite her face. So she knew what she was doing when she took the part of a troubled young woman in Apex, Nunavut, which is so far north the compasses don’t work properly. (Kidding, but it’s a lot closer to the North Pole than I ever want to get.) This may be the only film ever shot in the relatively new Canadian territory of Nunavut. Cold? I don’t even want to think about it.

It’s not entirely successful. There is a talking polar bear, which didn’t work for me. The girl takes off with her lover on snowmobiles, heading south. It doesn’t work out too well. The movie is interesting to watch for the scenery and the look at a town so dreadful … I don’t even want to think about it.