Betty Jo Tucker, ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Let There Be Lights
by Betty Jo Tucker

 
Aurora Borealis tells a touching story about love, loss, aging, family and everything else important in life. Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Louise Fletcher and Juliette Lewis are all absolutely terrific in this memorable -- almost spiritual -- coming-of-age drama that takes place in a wintry Minneapolis setting.

Jackson (The Skulls), who becomes a major screen presence with his sensitive and charismatic performance here, plays Duncan Shorter, a charming 25-year-old who can’t seem to keep a job. Still suffering from the death of his father ten years ago, he’s reluctant to find out the truth about how this tragedy happened. Duncan hangs out with his friends, plays hockey with them once in awhile, and drifts aimlessly through each day.

During a visit to his grandparents at their senior residence, Duncan takes a handyman job there to be near his grandfather, Ronald Shorter (Donald Sutherland), who is rapidly deteriorating from Parkinson’s Disease. Sutherland (Pride & Prejudice) broke my heart with his poignant interpretation of Ronald. If it doesn't earn him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor this year, I'll be very surprised and disappointed.  

The two men form a close bond, not simply because they both miss Duncan’s father but also because of the support they provide each other. Duncan takes Ronald outside “to blow the stink off,” and Ronald becomes Duncan’s matchmaker by encouraging his relationship with Kate (Juliette Lewis), a spunky health care worker assigned to assist Ronald at home. Ruth (Louise Fletcher), Duncan’s grandmother, also welcomes his visits because, although she loves her husband dearly, he’s a handful.

Failing mentally as well as physically, Ronald often talks enthusiastically about seeing the Northern Lights, technically called the aurora borealis, when he looks at the city of Minneapolis from his balcony at night. This electrical phenomenon involves colorful streamers of light in the sky above the northern magnetic pole. Everyone doubts Ronald’s accounts, believing this gorgeous sight only appears to people living in northern parts of Canada and Alaska. But Ronald, who knows his life is almost over, loves gazing at the “lights” he sees and pondering what they represent.

Meanwhile, Kate brings some welcome light and color into Duncan’s life. Both have an off-beat sense of humor, and they are intensely attracted to each other. However, Kate is a free spirit who flies from town to town, whereas Duncan seems afraid of responsibility and of anything outside Minneapolis. How long can their love affair last? Because Jackson and Lewis share such sweet on-screen chemistry, we can’t help hoping the characters they play will never be apart.

Aurora Borealis is one of those rare films where all the elements come together so well it’s like a cinematic miracle. Directing, writing, cinematography, acting, background music, editing, etc. are first-rate. But it’s the emotional impact, the way this movie makes you feel, that impressed me the most. You come to know and love the main characters despite their faults; in fact, you even want to hug them. And, motivated by Ronald Shorter, you begin to wish for beautiful lights -- whether others see them or not -- to help you face the critical phases of your own personal journey.   

“Aurora Borealis,” the coming-of-age story of an initially unmotivated youngster who steps up to the plate to care for his ailing grandfather (splendidly played by Donald Sutherland), contains powerful moments and engaging characters that enrich its rather simple tale.

James Burke and Brent Boyd have few credits as director and writer, but they handle the material like pros, avoiding missteps that would turn their yarn into a cloying and predictable “uplift” movie. Like “October Sky” (1999), another detailed portrait of small-town life, “Aurora Borealis” is sincere without being sappy, delivering heartfelt moments with wit and authenticity.

Joshua Jackson, a former teen heartthrob on the WB’s “Dawson’s Creek,” here plays Duncan as an older version of his TV character Pacey. Pacey’s inability to pass math or to please his father (no matter how hard he tried) made for addictive drama, but Duncan must deal with the more mundane problems that adulthood brings, like paying the bills. While Pacey’s incompetence was endearing, Duncan’s is simply sad; he can’t even land a job operating construction equipment. Unhappy with his role as a loser, Duncan is also resigned to it—after all, he can always borrow a few bucks from his brother. In exchange, Duncan loans his brother his apartment for his extra-marital affair.

When he’s not looking for a job, Duncan plays pool or instigates drunken barroom brawls with his old time buddies. Like most movies about male camaraderie, "Aurora Borealis" has a colorful supporting cast. Take, for example, the slovenly yet charming Vikings fan (set in Minnesota, the movie substitutes hockey for football), complete with his beer-belly and live-in sports jersey, or the Native American aficionado (played by a pasty white boy) who quotes lines from movies like they are his own.

Duncan is not as loyal to his grandparents, whom he neglects to visit. His grandfather Ronald suffers from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, a condition that makes Duncan sad when he would rather feel sorry for himself. However, a job prospect as a maintenance man lures Duncan to his grandparents’ nursing home, and soon he is spending more time with them.

In stead of the more predictable route, of “bonding moments” leading to Duncan’s newfound sense of purpose, the filmmakers plunge into each scene with a zeal that suggests concern with living in the moment, making each situation pleasurable to watch. Burke shows how humorous situations can lead to more serious issues, as the violent outburst that ensues when Ronald’s wife takes away his TV.

Contributing to the film’s spontaneity is Donald Sutherland’s performance as Ronald. A ribald live-wire, who at one point smashes a set of teacups with a hammer when his wife is too nagging, Sutherland defies the stereotypes of the decrepit old men or cliché sages. Sutherland’s strong spirit makes the vulnerability he displays, an onset of the Alzheimer’s, more moving, especially in the scene that gives the film its title, when a relative calls attention to his fading clarity.

Juliette Lewis as Kate, Duncan’s love interest, is also good. The husky-voiced Lewis is a girl who’s not afraid to burp loudly or adjust her bra in public. She initiates sex in a blunt way (“damn, my nipples are hard”) and exchanges “guy talk” with Duncan’s friends.

Yet there is undeniable chemistry, and even tenderness, in her scenes with Jackson, as Boyd realizes that intimacy is built not through broad declarations of love but subtle details, like the way Duncan is convinced that Kate needs him to watch the road for her when she is driving.

Predictably, “Aurora Borealis” displays elements of its genre, such as the dark family secret, and the hero’s former talent, which he wasted after losing faith in himself. However, the film introduces these elements as side notes, and handles them in ways that are not so typical.

Humble, Boyd and Burke rarely step outside the tiny community they have created to make statements about humanity. They should be commended for showing commitment to their story without falling into self-conscious techniques; unlike other indie directors, they seem less concerned with presenting themselves or their film as “quirky” or “cutting edge.”

Aimless twenty-something in snowbound Minneapolis tries to find direction while dealing with his father's death, caring for his grandfather, and opening up to grandpa's cute health aide.

Aurora Borealis is a date movie about death. Not too many of those. Fortunately, first-time screenwriter Brent Boyd and novice director James Burke—the latter best known as a Broadway producer (Long Day’s Journey Into Night) and movie executive producer (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing)—don't let the Big Questions get in the way of this tough, sweet and buoyantly funny drama about how we all grow up in different ways and on different timetables. If you look closely, in fact, this coming-of-age tale about an angry and aimless young Minnesotan whose growing-up got truncated by his father's death 10 years earlier has the structure of a romantic comedy, just played straight.

Duncan Shorter (Joshua Jackson) was 15 when his dad passed, and a decade later retains the wise-ass, know-it-all defiance of a precociously smart teenager who's not as smart as he thinks. A serial holder of menial jobs from which he's regularly fired, Duncan has the same friends that he had in fourth grade, still cheers for the Vikings, and still doesn't know what he wants from life.

At the urging—the command, really—of his adulterous yuppie brother (Steven Pasquale), Duncan pays a visit to grandparents Ron and Ruth (Donald Sutherland and Louise Fletcher), who've moved into a Minneapolis apartment from some unspecified "up North." Proud Ron has developed Parkinson's disease, and shows signs of Alzheimer's. Neither stops him from talking up his grandson to Kate (Juliette Lewis), the health-care worker who visits a couple of times a week. In gemlike, well-played scenes that in another setting would be called "meet-cute," townie Duncan and the peripatetic Kate gingerly embark on a grown-up relationship. And despite the chains of memory and loss that Duncan has shackled himself with, it goes okay for a while.

Produced in 2005 and playing festivals until its limited release on Sept. 15, the film has the same unchanging rhythm as the Twin Cities' Mississippi River. Yet the characters' small, mundane lives are so richly formed, so profoundly unique while being just like everyone else's, that you go with that rhythm of day-to-day-to-day life, that sameness just this side of despair. Duncan's brother Jacob fools around on his brittle wife. Duncan's friends go through the same weekend rituals as they have for years. Ruth takes classes, and Ron, growing weaker, more dependent and less lucid as time goes on, can't be bothered anymore to find his own distractions from living.

Uniformly well-acted, right down to Tyler Labine as the bitter fat friend who's still on a higher rung than Duncan, and Katie Griffin in her small but vibrantly genuine turn as Jacob's fling, and crafted with a knowing respect for its people and place, Aurora Borealis earns the right to make points about love, life, death and all the rest. What happens in the Twin Cities doesn't stay in the Twin Cities, but ripples outward with lessons that are true from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine.
—Frank Lovece, Film Journal





If there is an argument for music and its ability to transcend basic hearing and penetrate one's soul, there just might be something behind "Aurora Borealis" and how believing is not always seeing.

Bringing a well-packaged world suitable for the giant rectangular screen upon which we project movies, "Aurora Borealis" transcends the basic level of seeing a rather unfamiliar place to become a heartfelt slice of life.

And with a title like "Aurora Borealis," it can be distracting for a film that has nothing to do with the Northern Lights.

Does it involve astronomy? No. Does it take place in Canada? No. Is it about a deadbeat young man with no ambition to do anything with his life while coping with his ailing grandfather? That out-of-left-field question proves "Aurora Borealis" is not meant to be mistaken for a natural phenomenon or for anything else.

"Aurora Borealis" is about an emotional phenomenon that occurs within Duncan Shorter (Joshua Jackson) during his mid-20s life crisis. He is afflicted by a complete lack of direction in life. The problem is quite clear: Duncan is stuck in a comfort zone and is afraid of change. Any dramatic film's formula can point in only one direction.

Enter an unexpected love interest to spark inner change. Enter Kate.

As the free-spirited Kate, Juliette Lewis is radiant in what would otherwise be another cookie-cutter role designed just for her in the unforgettable spirit of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." Her performance is the equivalent of a teddy bear - lovable, caring and warm.

But while Duncan is taken through the film's formulaic tactics, the backdrop takes on its own interesting character. "Aurora Borealis" shines a spotlight on the Minnesota Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, thereby bringing light to the otherwise wintry gray locale.

Yet, even in this Midwestern urban grandeur there is melancholy to be had, and the film's tonality shares it in abundance.

Veteran actor Donald Sutherland captivates with less-than-subtle fragility as Duncan's Parkinson's-ailing grandfather, Ronald. And though strong-willed and youthfully witty, Ronald's journey is a heartbreaking one, especially when witnessed through Sutherland's pained eyes. He becomes the film's anchor, effortlessly maneuvering through the crafted intricacies of his heavy character.

Although Duncan falls short of heroic stature as a character, Jackson falls even shorter of leading-man charisma by biting off less profundity than the teenage angst-ridden Pacey Witter of "Dawson's Creek." Duncan is simply a lackluster character dependent upon the sympathetic qualities of those around him.

The burning question becomes: How do you root for a guy who doesn't want to accomplish anything for himself? He falls too quickly into the drab of his background, becoming lost within the gray hues unless he has a rainbow-colored spirit like Kate standing next to him. Duncan's genuine compassion for Ronald is all that is going for him as a barely two-dimensional character.

"Aurora Borealis" leads one to believe there is more to life than standing still, even though it's all Duncan really does. But without having to be this eye-opening life lesson, the film is still a quiet, homegrown gem with pure intentions. It doesn't look or feel like a Hollywood picture, and it doesn't need to be anything more or anything less than genuinely "phenomenal."




AARP Best Actor 50 and Over

Donald Sutherland, Aurora Borealis

Ronald Shorter is trapped. He was once a hard-working hardware salesman, a guy who gave orders and got results. Now he’s a prisoner of Parkinson’s, a fading shadow shuffling from room to room in his apartment, reporting back to his long-suffering wife about the results of his latest venture into the bathroom. It would be easy to simply pity Ronald, but in the haunting Aurora Borealis, Donald Sutherland plays him with such smoldering fire that even as he slowly disappears into himself, Ronald remains defiant, compassionate, and surprisingly triumphant.

Sutherland came very close to passing up the part of Ronald—a man who becomes determined to commit suicide. “I was very, very profoundly depressed for a bunch of reasons,” Sutherland says. “Ronald, this character, invaded my person. My father had Parkinson’s, my mother died with dementia, and I was pretty familiar with the depression that accompanies people who feel that termination of their life is the most generous thing they can do for the person they love.” Yet the film had an unexpected effect. Says Sutherland: “Almost as soon as I started to work on the picture, my depression disappeared, and I haven’t been depressed since. So Ronald cured me.”