Percy is the second underwhelming Canadian movie I saw in a single weekend. Of course it might be generous to call the movie Canadian. It’s an international co-production starring largely American actors and from a director who’s mostly worked in American T.V. The fact that a lot of it is set in Bruno, Saskatchewan is incidental -especially because it was actually shot in Manitoba due to the government of Saskatchewan hating art (vote by October 26th!). Whatever else I thought of The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, it did at least feel Canadian. Though a part of that was its’ cheapness, which is certainly not the case for Percy, backed up by almost a dozen production companies to ensure a quality relative to its lead star Christopher Walken. Obviously, this annoys me and speaks to a lot of heavier problems in funding in the Canadian film industry. Percy is only better than The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw because it was given the resources to be.
The film is based on a true story, and the particular kind of supreme underdog story that movies historically love. Percy Schmeiser, who passed away just this week, was an elderly canola farmer in Bruno who really did challenge Monsanto, first over a contamination dispute and then on behalf of farmers everywhere over the corporations’ exploitation of them and their crops. Percy illustrates the escalating series of legal battles in a conventional way, where Schmeiser, his wife Louise (Roberta Maxwell), and their single small-time lawyer (Zach Braff) seem to be on their own in taking on the imposing legal teams of Monsanto, always fronted by Martin Donovan. Of course, the couple become ostracized by their tight-knit community over this and the insinuation that Schmeiser stole Monsanto seed from his fellow farmers. And at the same time, a manipulative American environmental activist (Christina Ricci) latches onto this fight in the hopes of bolstering a movement against the conglomerate with Schmeiser as its’ face.
None of this is played particularly poorly, aside from its’ being derivative; the uphill battle for Percy is more about whether it can make the politics around farming interesting. Because as a subject, farming is incredibly boring for most people (there’s a reason why it is the profession so many heroes answer the call of adventure to escape), and this is a movie with a protagonist who’s so embedded in and proud of the work, frequently bringing up the family history in farming going back centuries, believing in an inherent nobility to it -often as a means of shaming his son who left the family business. But for as rotten a picture of Monsanto as this movie paints, using every cliché of big business in its toolbox (of which I’m sure the corporation really lives up to), I still can’t bring myself to care all that much about the sanctity of farming or why it particularly matters where seeds come from.
Of course on the latter point, Schmeiser doesn’t either, and you do get the sense of the freedom of these farmers being trodden on due to the flimsy nature of Monsanto’s copyrighted gene. The best part of the film is when Schmeiser visits India for a conference and we get a broader sense of the issue. It also allows for the film to give Schmeiser some allies that don’t seem to exist in Saskatchewan, where his only friend in the matter is an utterly wasted(yet again) Adam Beach. However the film is still weighed down by its’ inability to really explore its story in new ways and its tendency to rely on bland plot contrivances -such as the lawyer being frustrated by a string of lost cases he would have much rather just settled suddenly being won over by a comedic gesture for the big Supreme Court hearing. The movie is filled with little moments like that that are almost insultingly artificial.
And it just furthers how condescendingly Hollywood this Canadian story is presented as, even if it was produced far outside of the Hollywood system. Christopher Walken is fine as Percy, and it is nice to see the guy notorious for taking any role offered him actually playing a part seriously. But he’s not so good that a Donald Sutherland or Gordon Pinsent or Victor Garber couldn’t have played the part over him. In fact Walkens’ distinct New York accent gives him away immediately as someone not born and raised in Saskatchewan. Braff, who’s never been more than okay in any movie he’s appeared in, could also have easily been swapped out for a Canadian actor. But of course, authenticity is not the goal here when the reason for these castings was so clearly star power to attract audiences. But it does hurt the films’ effect, especially as some Canadian actors are swiftly gaining star power in their own right both abroad and here at home. Look at the popularity of Schitt’s Creek or that Canadian sitcom actor who’s going to be headlining a Marvel movie. As for director Clark Johnson, who did grow up in Canada and who’s best received work includes a few episodes of The Wire and the Alfre Woodard Netflix movie Juanita, his approach is rather workmanlike. It’s very competent, not at all drawing attention to itself, but far too ordinary.
I would say there’s a lack of ambition on display in Percy, but the story doesn’t seem to warrant much of it to begin with. However even I feel it could have been a little more engrossing and resonated more honestly with the kind of people it is apparently about. I’d like to see less Canadian movies wearing the masks of American movies and being themselves, even as that method has occasionally yielded good results. And Percy has about as Canadian a story as you can get.
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