Lacing moments of dark comedy with powerful drama and emotion, Tight Lettuce, premiering at Fantasia Film Festival, is a film built on the exceptional performances of Dakota Daulby and Emmanuel Bilodeau, a strong ensemble, and the lived experience at the story’s heart.
Addiction comes in many forms; some people with an addiction are functional, while for others their addiction is all-consuming and ultimately deadly. Harrison Houde’s directorial feature debut is concerned with the challenging grey area between the two, while asking an equally knotty question: when does care become enabling in an addiction journey, and who dictates when that line has been crossed?
Inspired by a true story, Tight Lettuce follows a father and son living on the border between Quebec and Ontario through the highs and lows of care, opioid and fentanyl addiction and the waves that addiction generates in a loving family unit. But where Tight Lettuce subverts expectations is that this is not the story of a father desperately attempting to help an addicted son; it’s the story of a son attempting to steer his addicted father toward recovery through love and support.
Joel (Dakota Daulby) followed in his father, Bodo’s (the brilliant Emmanuel Bilodeau) footsteps when he became a roofer and construction worker, but his father is no longer the man he once was. Addiction often creeps up on people, and Bobo has lost everything, apart from his son’s love, over the years since Heroin and then fentanyl became his crutch. Yet, despite his addiction, Bobo continues to live a life in overdrive, as he feeds his habit through small jobs, such as trampling grapes for his dealer, while attempting to woo Joel’s mum (Maxim Roy) back into his life. Bobo’s addiction journey wasn’t random; Joel’s mum was also addicted to Heroin for many years before getting clean, and Bobo often states that his addiction came from his attempts to help her.
Whatever the truth may be, Joel isn’t willing to cut his dad off or demand he seek help. Instead, he supports his father and takes him on outings such as kayaking, and ensures he has a roof over his head, even if Bobo has a habit of destroying and damaging each property Joel provides, from a small town apartment to an RV parked in the garden of his grandmother (France Castel), who, like Joel, isn’t willing to give up on her son. But that care comes at a price. Joel’s loving relationship with his partner, Taylor (Christie Burke), is often disrupted by his father’s needs, and as they plan to travel to Australia, Taylor is far more enthusiastic than Joel, who worries about leaving his dad for long periods. Despite their love, cracks are beginning to show; after all, care and support can quickly become life-consuming.
As Joel films the happy moments spent with his dad, his initial plan is to use this to document the love and care his dad returns to him despite his addiction and the chaos of his life lived at 100 miles per hour. Yet as he watches the film back, he begins to question whether his love and support will ever see his father get clean, and whether he or anyone else has the right to demand that.
Lacing moments of dark comedy with powerful drama and emotion, Tight Lettuce is a film built on the exceptional performances of Daulby and Bilodeau, a strong ensemble, and the lived experience at the story’s heart. It’s not Houde’s story but one a friend of his trusted him to tell. As Houde said ahead of Tight Lettuce’s Fantasia Film Festival premiere, “They trusted me to tell it. I took that seriously. A lot of what’s on screen is true; the scenes that feel out-of-pocket, or wild, are often the ones we didn’t have to make up. The heart of the film is a son who keeps loving his father through all of the chaos. It portrays the ravages of addiction, holding comedy and devastation moment to moment.”
That brings me back to the question at the heart of this portrait of addiction: when does care become enabling in an addiction journey, and who dictates when that line has been crossed? Unlike many addiction dramas, Harrison Houde isn’t interested in moralistic answers. Instead, he opts to embrace observational storytelling that paints a complex picture of addiction, family love and support and the challenges of any healing journey. This allows the audience to draw their own conclusions about where the line between care and enablement lies, while encouraging debate about who has the right to demand that someone seek help, making Tight Lettuce an assured, brave and bold directorial debut.
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