Comedy | Drama | Canada | 101min
w/ R.H. Thomson, Sheila McCarthy, Michèle-Barbara Pelletier, Paul Soles, Tara Frederick, Frances Hyland, Aloka McLean
A small island community off Canada's West Coast gets a head start on the social changes from the '50s to the '60s when a free-spirited teacher comes into their midst, bringing magic, love, and a pair of pigs.
Set on the West Coast of Canada in 1965, a hip new teacher with a miniskirt and lots of ideas turns a small town upside down.
The soft autumn light of Galiano Island is beautifully rendered in writer/producer Peggy Thompson's The Lotus Eaters, and that's not the only elusive element that this film has captured.
In revisiting its particular time and place - the Gulf Islands of the early '60s -Thompson obviously draws on her own family experiences there.
For those who share Thompson's love of Gulf Islands magic, the elements she has assembled will feel as familiar as their own childhood blanket.
But there are problems at the core of this story about a family's loss of innocence, and at times the charming and seductive details collapse into mere set decoration for Thomas Burstyn's luminous cinematography.
The story centres on the Kingswood family. Hal is the local school principal, his wife Diana knits sweaters to sell in the local store.
Their relationship is adrift in the minutiae of their routines. Daughter Cleo, at 16, thinks her parents are from another planet.
The much younger Zoe is too carefree to know that her parents and sister are all just experiencing different stages of the same malady.
Into this mix steps Anne-Marie Andrews, a 24-year-old teacher from Quebec who sings folk songs to her class and moves their desks into a circle.
This doesn't sit well with the by-the-book Hal, who nevertheless finds himself becoming inexplicably attracted to the new teacher.
Much trouble ensues.
The Lotus Eaters was released on VHS, but has never been released on DVD.