Aurora Borealis (2006)There’s not a single shred of originality in the curiously titled “Aurora Borealis.” This is the film’s biggest problem. And then there is Joshua Jackson whose easy affability cannot substitute the acting chops he does not possess. One of the few redeeming facets in “Aurora Borealis” is Donald Sutherland’s magnificent performance of an old grandfather who the screenwriter afflicts with all manner of dehabilitating conditions: Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. (Evil, manipulative screenwriter.) The aurora borealis of the film’s title refers to Sutherland’s character Ronald who can see the northern lights dancing outside the window of his apartment in a wintery small town of Minneapolis. Despite what you may be led to believe, Ronald or his obsession with said lights is not the film’s main concern. It is Joshua Jackson’s character Duncan who “needs to be saved.” The very first scene in the film has him being fired and falling to the ground after slipping on wet ice. Talk about an entrance.
You see, Duncan lost his dad at a tender age, and we learn from his childhood friends that he became a loser de-facto given the severe deprivation of a young lark’s rites-of-passage — teenage rebellion, pranks, fucking up. When Duncan starts romancing Juilette Lewis’ sexy-kooky Kate, a health care professional (she clarifies the fancy title, in all seriousness, as someone “who looks after sick people”) his best friends ask her with great curiosity: “Don’t you know you’re too out of league for him?” Yes, we also wonder as does Duncan who, at one point in the film, even confronts her. She stumbles with “I liked you even before I met you…from the photos of you with your grandparents.” Love is truly blind.
The dialogues in “Aurora Borealis,” to our relief, do work regardless of the predictable story and stock characterisation; they are witty and sharp and every bit as congenial as the average episode of “The Gilmore Girls.” But, back again to the film’s title. The film builds tension by implying that Duncan’s grandpa is suicidal, that by the third act he may call upon the grandson to facilitate his smooth exit from planet Earth. Life’s pretty bad for the old man — Sutherland makes the neediness of his character visceral, especially in a key scene where he has to enlist Duncan’s help to use the toilet. At this moment we are genuinely interested in finding out if Duncan will go through. The moral implications are fascinating. Besides, Duncan’s life is just starting to look promising; we understand helping out his beloved grandpa out can complicate matters for him (police, bad dreams for life, possible lashing out at own spawn.) But damn Sutherland’s sad, moving performance which makes his character so deplorable that we begin to wish Duncan would help. But “Aurora Borealis” doesn’t have the spine to study such moral implications. It wants to be a brooding drama about growing up and family by paying lip service. Should anyone be surprised by the film’s happy ending where the heroine kisses the hero as the golden sun sinks into the beach? In “Aurora Borealis,” a second-rate male weepy, the loser may finally win, but the audience almost surely loses.
Rating: 
1/2 out of
