Ross McMillan

Ellen Burstyn and Ellen Page star in this uplifting romance based on the best selling novel by Margaret Laurence. Fiesty firecracker Hagar Shipley (BURSTYN) has lived an unconventional life. Her passionate heart has always ruled her head and her choices have put her at odds with family and friends. With her life nearly behind her, she sets out in search of a way to reconcile herself to her turbulent past. Through her reflections we come to know a passionate rebellious young bride, her love for her two sons, the freedoms she claimed, and the jobs she denied herself.

Ellen Burstyn and Ellen Page star in this uplifting romance based on the best selling novel by Margaret Laurence. Fiesty firecracker Hagar Shipley (BURSTYN) has lived an unconventional life. Her passionate heart has always ruled her head and her choices have put her at odds with family and friends. With her life nearly behind her, she sets out in search of a way to reconcile herself to her turbulent past. Through her reflections we come to know a passionate rebellious young bride, her love for her two sons, the freedoms she claimed, and the jobs she denied herself.

It's 1933 in Winnipeg and the Great Depression is in full bloom. Beer Baroness Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) announces a global competition to determine the saddest music in the world, and musicians from across the globe pour into town to vie for the whopping $25,000 prize. Sobbing Mexican Mariachis, dour Scottish Bagpipers, woeful West African drummers and numerous other grief-stricken ensembles give it their all. Down-on-his-luck Broadway producer Chester Kent (Mark McKinney) and his amnesiac girlfriend Narcissa (Maria de Medeiros) return home to his native Winnipeg as the United States entry in the contest. He soon finds himself embroiled in a family reunion as treacherous and twisted as the competition itself. Ultimately, a cataclysmic fire and the machinations of fate sort matters out for the sad characters and the denizens of the saddest city on earth. Part musical melodrama, part tongue-in-cheek social satire, Guy Madden's expressionistic film achieves a level of lunacy rarely seen since the Marx Brothers.

Guy Maddin's early masterpiece takes place in a 19th-century Alpine village where the wary residents - adult, child and animal! - must speak softly and tread lightly lest they cause an avalanche. But sexual frenzies teem in this world of repression, setting off incestuous love triangles and quadrangles with deadly consequences. Bathed in lurid, luminescent tints, CAREFUL resembles a vintage melodrama from another planet - something that could only emerge from the singular mind of Maddin.