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A Night for Dying Tigers: Lauren Lee Smith and Gil Bellows dish out family dysfunction like it’s going out of style

Family gatherings. Now there’s a topic you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone unable to expand on. Over the course of our lifetime, we amass a tickle trunk of screwy stories from these recurrent rendezvous, that are of immeasurable capital to any stand-up comic. Vancouver-bred actress Lauren Lee Smith takes on the role of a disparate family’s loose cannon in Terry Miles’ A Night for Dying Tigers, an excellent Canuck film about a family’s last supper of sorts, with the oldest of four siblings (a magnetic Gil Bellows) set to commence a five-year prison term the following day for killing a rapist. And not just any rapist… his mistress’ rapist. No sweat, folks: we’re just getting started.
 

“I think family reunions always make for such interesting dynamics,” a stunning Smith tells me at Toronto’s Intercontinental Hotel during the film’s TIFF press blitz. “Within a family unit, you always have these differing personality types: maybe Uncle Joe is a drinker, perhaps the brother is a religious nut or whatever, so when you bring them all together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, you can expect some interesting fireworks.”

 

Women on the verge
Smith’s portrayal of the lone, wounded girl (and an adopted one, at that) raised in the shadow of her child prodigy bros recalls Anne Hathaway’s Kym in Rachel Getting Married, with more acrimonious feelings to purge. “Karen’s going through a tough time and, over the course of the night, she consumes every drug and alcoholic beverage she gets her hands on…which doesn’t help matters,” Smith recognizes.
 

Karen’s delicate balance of vulnerability and recklessness recalls other tough-to-crack characters the actress has portrayed of late, most notably closed-off party girl Leila in Toronto director Clement Virgo’s salacious Lie with me. But while Karen and Leila are long shots in the Best Female Role Model category (if in doubt, refer to the incest subplot involving Karen), they’re complex female parts, which are sadly still hard to come by. “I’m happy to hear you say that, because that’s exactly how I feel about it,” says Smith. “They’re far from being just the one-note crazy girls, and I certainly haven’t read anything in the States lately that’s inspired me much in that sense.”

 

Moral compass out of wack
Comparisons between this slow-burning celebration of family dysfunction and The Royal Tenenbaums are warranted (Night’s got less lovable quirkiness, more incriminating baggage), as are those with the Danish Dogme classic The Celebration, which Miles hints at when the filmmaker in the family talks of his recent “Danish co-production.”
 

But what sets this acerbic indie gem apart from other family-inturmoil dramas are the understated dynamics at play among the film’s gifted ensemble cast. Between Jennifer Beals, Kathleen Robertson, Gil Bellows and a handful of others, the nuanced performances elicit much-needed empathy for this oftentimes loathsome bunch. And while Night’s family couldn’t be more at odds, the same cannot be said for the tight-knit cast that gave life to the story.
 

As I chat with another B.C.-bred thesp, Ally McBeal alum Gil Bellows, a symphony of cackling laughter reverbs throughout the Intercontinental suite where the film’s cast has gathered for the premiere. “When you reduce a project down to a very small budget and a very small group of people, you’re either in it together or you’re not,” a delightfully rugged, black leather jacket-clad Bellows tells me. “That’s going to be apparent very quickly, and if you are, then sky’s the limit, anything can happen.”
 

As for the resonance of Night’s blood-deep rivalries, revelations and resentments, always simmering just below the surface? “You know, family is a constant, and it’s not perfect,” shares the soft-spoken Bellows. “And so if you emphasize the imperfection of that entity, you’ll see what’s broken or damaged. But it’s inherently a constant thing. You can run away from it, you can ignore it, but it’s still a part of you.”



A Night for Dying Tigers
Screens at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma
October 13 to 24 | anightfordyingtigers.com |
nouveaucinema.ca

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