Teenaged Lincoln, played by Phillip Lewitski, is angry and confused about a lot of things in his life. He lives with his father, Arvin, in Nova Scotia, who routinely beats him and torments him psychologically. Travis, his younger half-brother, played by Avery Winters-Anthony, luckily doesn’t get the same unwanted attention from their dad, but what makes them different is Link is half Mi’kmaw and his father seems to resent him for the failed relationship with his mother after she ran away from him. Link seems to have had no positive experiences being an Indigenous person and even goes as far to bleach his hair to try harder to pass as white. After a particularly brutal beating from Arvin, who takes away the keys to Link’s dirt bike, he goes through his dad’s room searching for them, but instead finds a box of letters from his mother who he was told had actually died years earlier. She continued to write to him and send him cards over the years that Arvin had kept from Link.
At that point Link runs away from the abusive household and takes little Travis with him too. The two have no food, no transportation and no money so getting around is tough. In a convenience store after a white shopkeeper accuses Link of stealing he meets Pasmay, played by Joshua Odjick, who recognizes the Indigenous side of Link and begins to speak Mi’kmaq to him. Link has no connection to his Mi’kmaw roots and doesn’t speak the language and goes as far as being offended by this gesture. This is an issue far greater than Lincoln’s who was raised in a white household, as many Indigenous people had their culture stolen and ripped away from them and after generational trauma struggle to reconnect with their ancestral roots.
From there, Link and Travis travel with Pasmay as they try to find out where Link’s mother may be. The film takes a traditional road trip aspect, but puts its own twist on the genre by having a young person discover their history through interactions with other Mi’kmaw people. Link’s uncertainty and fear of who he is gets explored as he eventually realizes he is also Two-Spirited and attracted to the much more confident Pasmay. When the two finally get together for the first time romantically, it is after skinny dipping in the water at night and going behind a waterfall to have sex. The scene is reminiscent of something from Y tu mamá también, which is also a road trip where two young men realize they have feelings for each other. Water is a powerful allegory for the film, as the first time Link lets his guard down is when the three young men go for a swim to clean off and later in the film when he visits a home of an Elder who might know where his mother is, he takes a shower and is able to remember memories of himself as a child with his mom. It goes so far as Pasmay has a patch on his denim jacket that says “water is sacred”.
The film is unique as we get not only a chance to see someone discover their Indigenous history, as he learns why his hair is special, basic vocabulary of his mother’s language and traditions such as dancing at powwows and cooking with elders. We also get to see someone explore their sexuality combining ways that are constantly challenging and confronting Link’s preconceived notions. Later in the film, when walking along the road in the rain the three boys get picked up by Smokey, played by Michael Greyeyes, in a van painted with Indigenous iconography, including a unicorn with a rainbow mane. Through Smokey’s van the trio, but specifically Link, learn a lot about queer culture amongst Indigenous people. He has a trans nephew who teaches Link a lesson about having the white man’s hair. Then after following a lead of where Link’s mother may work, a club called the Tiger Lily, which is a queer bar the features drag performers, and one that Smokey is very familiar with.
There’s a great shot early in the film when Pasmay had first picked up Link and Travis and suddenly Arvin roars behind them in a car. The camera pans from the back window showing the car approaching them, to Link in the front seat, who hangs out the window and throws a cup of urine at the car, the camera keeps panning to show it hit the windshield as Arvin slams on his brakes. The one take shot seems to recall Children of Men, when Alfonso Cuaron (who also directed Y tu mamá también) pulled the same trick in one of the film’s most iconic moments.
By the time we get to the end of the journey and Link has grown exponentially, there is a touching scene on the beach that wraps up all the film’s themes together so beautifully. It is scored by a Jeremy Dutcher song called Mehcinut, and the story of Dutcher fits in well with the themes of the film. He won the Polaris Music Prize in 2018 for his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, where he found old archival recordings of music made by his Wolastoq ancestors in their traditional Maliseet language. The language had almost died out completely, so he had to learn how to speak it in order to transcribe the music and reinterpret them.
The film is a fresh and bold take on the road trip and coming of age stories that has really deft direction by Bretten Hannam, who also identifies as Two-Spirit, making this likely a very personal story combining the preservation of Mi’kmaw culture and understanding of one’s own sexuality and gender.
Wildhood was seen during the 2021 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival. Thank you to the festival for the press pass. Wildhood currently has no wide North American release date.
