Canadian Road Trip Candy: ‘One Week’ on DVD
Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 06.18.09 | 4:53 PM ET
Photo by Remember One Week, aka Canada’s “Into the Wild”? Well, the movie may never have made it to U.S. theaters, but it landed on DVD this week—and while I wouldn’t count on it being stocked at your local Blockbuster, I can confirm that Netflix is on the ball.
But is it worth a rental? I caught it on an Air Canada flight a few weeks back and had mixed feelings.
The story follows straight-laced Ben, played by Joshua Jackson, as he takes an impromptu cross-country motorcycle trip following a grim cancer diagnosis, leaving a scared and angry fiancee behind in Toronto. The visuals are stunning: Ben rolls through Ontario’s Muskokas, along Lake Superior’s wild north shore, across the prairie and into Banff before washing up in Tofino, on Vancouver Island. For lovers of roadside kitsch, there’s a succession of faded highway-side landmarks: Sudbury’s giant nickel, the Wawa goose and so on.
Apart from the eye candy, though (which is entirely irresistible—just check out this mouthwatering list of filming locations), the movie has its flaws. Ben’s travels are recounted by an omniscient narrator, whose voice-overs—though sometimes very funny—can also be intrusive, too frequent, and offering more information than the viewer needs spelled out. The relationship between Ben and his fiancee, Sam, is treated with nuance, but at other times the symbolism of the journey is clumsy and heavy.
Still, I’d say it’s worth your two hours. And I dare anyone to watch it without acquiring an immediate desire to take off on a cross-country Canadian road trip of their own.