Ellyn Jade stars as Nika and Star Slade as Madison in the film, which opens March 20.Redlight Feature Productions/Supplied
Nika & Madison
Directed by Eva Thomas
Written by Eva Thomas and Michael McGowan
Starring Star Slade, Ellyn Jade and Amanda Brugel
Classification N/A; 87 minutes
Opens in select theatres March 20
A Canadian spin on Thelma & Louise, the ambitious new drama Nika & Madison has all the fiery spirit of its made-in-Hollywood inspiration, if not quite the narrative dynamism and endless resources.
Two young Indigenous women who have faced injustice their entire lives, Nika (Ellyn Jade) and Madison (Star Slade) are appropriate updates for Ridley Scott’s title heroines, up to and including the sequence in which the former stops the latter from being sexually assaulted, an act of self-defense that sends the two on the run from the law.
Nika and Madison follows the story of two young Indigenous women.Katelyn Cursio/Supplied
But whereas Scott and his high-gloss cast were able to deliver their tale of righteous fury and empowerment in the form of a sweeping, big-hearted (and big-budget) road-trip thriller, Nika & Madison’s Eva Thomas can only push her characters, and their circumstances, so far. The result isn’t so much pulse-pounding as it is politely head-nodding.
The film opens with a sharp enough edge, following Madison as she balances her university course-load in Toronto with the naive presumptions of her friends who have no idea what life for Indigenous women looks like.
After heading back to her home community for the weekend, Madison quickly realizes why she has been so eager to spend more time in the big city. Not only does she receive a chilly reception from her one-time best friend Nika, but she quickly gets into a bar fight with a former neighbour who doesn’t seem to appreciate Madison’s anywhere-but-here ambitions.
After Madison is arrested, though, she finds herself at the mercy of a detestable cop (David Reale) whose attempt to rape her is violently disrupted by Nika. Knowing full well that the prejudiced legal system will be against them from the jump, the two women try to find refuge in the backwoods of the reservation before journeying to Toronto.
Star Slade as Madison, Billy Merasty as uncle George and Ellyn Jade as Nika.Redlight Feature Productions/Supplied
Just as in Thelma & Louise, Thomas roughly splits her narrative between her title outlaws and the authorities hot on their trail, including a steely detective played by Amanda Brugel in full Harvey Keitel mode, convinced that she can help the friends instead of merely hunting them. Her good intentions are constantly undermined, though, by the repellent cynicism of her partner, a good-ol’-boy cop (Shawn Doyle) who is more invested in protecting the sanctity of the town’s thin blue line than anything else.
Expanding the vision of her 2023 short film Redlights, Thomas displays a keen eye for performances, nicely balancing the winsome, sly charms that Slade brings to her role with the harder-edged realism embodied by Jade. Whenever the two women share the same space, the film floats on a wave of easy, natural chemistry. It is only when the characters are compelled to move from one place to another, with no real plan or sense of narrative momentum, that the film slips between your fingers.
For North of North’s breakout star Anna Lambe, acting is political
The opposite problem afflicts the half of the film focusing on the system that Nika and Madison are so desperately fighting. Thomas’s script, co-written with Canadian film veteran Michael McGowan (One Week, Score: A Hockey Musical), gets close to turning up the heat when it scratches against notions of the systemic misogyny and racism facing Indigenous women. But the fiery material is burnt to a crisp by Brugel and Doyle, the former sleepwalking through the role with a curious sense of dispassion and the latter playing his villain’s amorality straight to the rafters.
Fortunately, this is mostly Nika and Madison’s story, and the energy that Slade in particular brings to the proceedings cannot be ignored. While the pair don’t quite go out in a blaze of over-the-cliff glory à la Thelma and Louise − the script simply doesn’t allow for anything but a shoulder-shrug of a denouement − they leave a lasting impression all their own.