Mitsy (Meghan Greenly), a young woman in a small, ramshackle Newfoundland town, feels the sting of her mother’s (Jane Maggs) long-ago abandonment, the crush of her gran’s (Mary Walsh) zealous, protective guardianship and the thrill of shocking both of them by taking up with a stinking cad (Joel Hynes). This movie is special. It knows the emotional claustrophobia of a dysfunctional family. It gets that young people sometimes can’t see beyond the borders of the chaos surrounding them, and it is confident that its story about a young woman’s hard-fought battle for her sense of self is as thrilling and engaging as any Herculean struggle. Director/writer Sherry White makes Crackie vibrate with a determination, a sureness and an auspicious depth of wisdom.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2010.