There is no doubt that Eng and Morrice have announced their arrival with a stunning movie that reflects modern teenage life in a way few films manage to do. Therapy Dogs is showing at the Slamdance Festival from January 27th to February 6th 2022.
What are your lasting memories of school? Are they rose-tinted? Or are they bound to a deep sense of confusion and a struggle to be free? Our memories often differ based on our age at the time and our age now; for example, our memories of primary school and senior school are frequently vastly different, and the older we get, the more we cherry-pick the good bits and relegate the bad to the vaults of our minds.
In this ocean of memories, the final days of school life often reign supreme, and directors have long used them to create movies that explore the steps we all take into a more adult world. Many of these movies explore themes of insecurity, anxiety, and newfound freedom – the narrative journey based on the unavoidable change the final days of school bring. But how often do we see this life-changing transition from the viewpoint of those going through this rite of passage?
Therapy Dogs is a bold, daring, and innovative debut feature that merges the fly-on-the-wall documentary with a fictional narrative arc, as the confusion, escapism, and energy of youth find a distinct new voice through Ethan Eng and Justin Morrice.
As I reflect on my final days of school, several emotions stand out from those heady early summer days: confusion, hope, fear, and excitement. I was confused about who I was and who I wanted to be, fearing I would never succeed, but I was just as excited about the future. But, there was also a sense of mourning attached to this rite of passage, one that came with a nagging suspicion that my school friendships were ending. Over the years, I have seen and critiqued many films that aimed to explore this mental and emotional wilderness, and I can confidently say Therapy Dogs is one of the most creative of the bunch.
Ethan and Justin were sixteen when they began work on Therapy Dogs. Over the course of a year, they would take their camera everywhere, documenting their school and their fellow students’ experiences. You would, therefore, be forgiven for assuming that Therapy Dogs is a documentary. After all, this is real life, right?
Well, not precisely, as although the students and school are real, this is, in essence, a semi-structured drama about two boys hurtling towards adulthood. Eng and Morrice embrace guerrilla-style filmmaking that, at times, echoes the social complexity and style of Bing Liu’s 2019 documentary Minding the Gap. Like Minding the Gap, Therapy Dogs delves into a range of complex coming-of-age themes as fiction and reality converge, creating a vibrant and innovative film that captures a fleeting yet important life transition.
It will be no surprise to many watching that Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller acted as mentors and producers to Eng and Morrice with their first film. The Dirties used a similar guerrilla filmmaking technique when it premiered at Slamdance in 2013.
However, Therapy Dogs carries a very different vibe and energy from that of The Dirties, as handheld cameras weave through the corridors of Cawthra Park Secondary School, Ontario, documenting those heady final days of school life. Equally powerful is the fact that Eng and Morrice unknowingly reflect on the last year of school before the pandemic struck, creating a time capsule of school life before masks, social distancing and endless lockdowns.
There is no doubt that Eng and Morrice have announced their arrival with a stunning movie that reflects modern teenage life in a way few films manage to do. Here, the raw honesty of their pictures layers suburban youth experience with the reality of inescapable endings and new beginnings, as they both ask a simple yet complex teenage question: what comes next, and what’s my place and purpose in this confusing and often fucked up world?
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