Expiration Movie Review

Let me just tell you what the back cover of the Expiration screener says about the film.

"Set amidst the chaotic, yet seemingly predestined events of a Fall Montreal night, the film follows three lost characters through a circus of bizarre tests, trials, and absurd events. Led by ghosts of their past, the tale's central figures confront life, death and all that lies between -- seduced by the promise of a new morning. As their futures materialize, realization dawns that every step of their journey has been leading to a single moment, high above the city..."

Now I've read that six times and it still doesn't mean a thing to me. So let's put aside the plot description -- which can otherwise be cast as an indie Night on Earth or After Hours, just spookier -- and try to make some sense of it. At the core are three kids -- one is pregnant (Erin Simkin) and one is proposing as a result, and they end up in Montreal (tres chic!) to semi-celebrate. But our hero (Gavin Heffernan) gets robbed of the engagement ring, as does another girl (Janet Lane), a drug courier whose delivery is also absconded with. Thus, hero and drug gal take off to find the missing merchandise... and all manner of havoc ensues.

Some of this is artsy fartsy to the point where even the actors' eyes seem to roll (indeed this is a film school project of a sort... not to mention Canadian). A roulette game with an HIV-infected blood injection for the loser? Come now. And that "single moment, high above the city" turns out to be some dude on top of a building, speechifying and playing a mix tape on a boombox. Wings of Desire this isn't.

Hefferman, who also wrote and directed the film, is apt in the lead role -- obviously the movie's many disjointed vignettes have sprung from his mind at some point in time. At the very least he imbues the rather absurd adventure with some soul. The natural and talented Janet Lane is probably the only actor in the production who will go anywhere. Why, there's probably a slasher film being shot right now that could use her prodigious talents.

Clean that mirror.