The Shape of Rex: A past coming-of-age romance plays parallel with today as a middle-age couple deal with their former love and a dark secret.
"I been talkin' to filmmakers. I been workin' on eyes," goes the cryptic lyrics to the Guess Who's 1972 hit Runnin' Back to Saskatoon. Perhaps it foreshadowed The Shape of Rex, a new film from Saskatchewan native Layne Coleman, a Toronto theatre mainstay (he was artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille from 1998 to 2007) who returned to Saskatoon three years ago to teach and, through the summer and fall of 2011, shoot his feature film directorial debut.
The Shape of Rex, co-written and directed by former lawyer William Hominuke, whom Coleman first collaborated with 25 years ago, is about a middle-aged lawyer, Rex (Ryan Hollyman), who gets a visit from an old teenaged flame, Rose (Monica Dottor), and the two rekindle their affair, which is complicated by their new families and a dark secret from the past.
The movie takes place in parallel timelines, with young Rex and Rose played by Brett Donahue and Vivien Endicott-Douglas (who was nominated for a 2013 ACTRA award for her performance here). Although well-acted, the script gets somewhat overburdened by a Gothic secret from Rex and Rose's past.
The film, still undistributed, runs for a week (June 7-13) at the Royal in Toronto.