Chelsea Preston plays Gabby, whose friendship with Lea (Kelsey Falconer) is a key pillar of Fortescue.Eric Rowe/Supplied
Fortescue
Written and directed by Rebeccah Love
Starring Kelsey Falconer, Chelsea Preston and Tyson Coady
Classification N/A; 94 minutes
Screens June 22 at the Paradise Theatre in Toronto; July 24-26 at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto
Critic’s Pick
Early in the wonderful new Canadian drama Fortescue, a hopeful young theatre director named Lea (Kelsey Falconer) delivers a confession: “I’m scared all the time as an adult. I’m scared and nothing can calm me down.”
Lea says the words with a kind of resigned self-deprecation – as if she is testing the emotional waters to see how her close friend, an actress named Gabby (Chelsea Preston) might respond, the two women killing time on the shores of Fortescue Lake in central Ontario. “That sounds really hard,” Chelsea responds, similarly unsure how sincere her friend might be at the moment. But then, before the two can get deeper into the conversation, it shifts to the imminent arrival of Lea’s boyfriend, Kevin (Tyson Coady). At this point, sensitive viewers can feel the ground of director Rebeccah Love’s film shift, ever so subtly and effectively.
A highly nuanced and frequently wrenching exploration of the complexities of female friendship, the poisoned perspective of the male gaze, the stigmatization of illness, and how all those themes (and more) might inform the inherently messy artistic process, Fortescue is an ambitious and often remarkable feature directorial debut that heralds promising things from one of this country’s most passionate and dedicated emerging storytellers.
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The film is intense, messy and bursting with ideas – which seems to exactly reflect the mindset of Lea, who has brought Gabby and Kevin to her family’s cabin in cottage country with the hopes of staging a pandemic-inspired riff on Rapunzel for her lakeside neighbours, including – perhaps improbably – the artistic director of the Stratford Festival (Jacqueline Greer Graham).
Initially, the plan seems inspired – it is clear that Lea is a creative force to be reckoned with, and her relationship with Gabby hints at a deep synchronicity when it comes to art, life and love. But the entire mood sours once the preening Kevin enters the women’s space, to the point that Lea’s persona seems to change on a fundamental level, down to her fashion choices. As Kevin pushes himself around the women’s shared space, imposing his insipid perspective on the pair (including his oafish interpretation of Edgar Degas), Lea and Gabby begin to feel at odds not just with one another but with the play-within-a-film they have dedicated so much time, energy and spirit toward.
What’s worse: Kevin seems to have either no understanding of or no compassion for Lea’s manic depression, the effects of which threaten not only the trio’s theatre production, but Lea and Gabby’s rather profound connection. By the time Love pulls back the curtain on Lea’s neo-Rapunzel, the stakes suddenly seem incredibly high.
Shot on a minuscule budget of $180,000 over the course of just 15 days, Fortescue is a fantastically knotty creation whose big ideas and rigorous execution belie its financial limitations.
Rebeccah Love, right, and Eric Rowe film Fortescue.Eli Meadow Ramraj/Supplied
As a filmmaker living with chronic health issues herself, including bipolar disorder, Love approaches Lea as not merely a collection of symptoms but as an artist struggling to reconcile her creative self with the limitations of her mind and body. And the decision to make Lea a creature of the stage isn’t a whim, either – given all the theatrical allusions on display, both in Lea’s play and in the environment that the film surrounds her in, it is clear that Love herself has spent a lifetime digesting the art form.
While Falconer and Preston are both fantastic as two women trying to steady themselves inside a whirlwind, it is Coady who is both handed the biggest challenge and somehow walks away with the show. As written, Kevin is a ball of bad vibes – from his very first appearance, it’s abundantly clear that he’s the unambiguous villain. Yet Coady, who collaborated with Love on her 2020 short Parlour Palm, digs deep enough into the loathsome character to prevent overeager audiences from reaching for the screen to claw him to death.
As Lea says in the beginning of the film, nothing can calm her down. But Love’s film eventually manages to uncover a certain kind of restful stillness. A message to Lea – and any other audiences out there who might sometimes feel the same way – that every kind of fear can be overcome by the patience of a good friend who will listen.
