Parsley Days. (Reviews).

2001 79m prod A.D. Productions, p Andrea Dorfman, Kimberly Boyd, dis/sc/ph Andrea Dorfman, ed Scott Simpson, pd Marcia Connally, s ed Alek Bromke, mus Ian McGettigan, Robert Benvie; with Megan Dunlop, Mike LeBlanc, Maria McLean, Kenneth Wilson-Harrington, Marcia Connolly, Shannon Cunningham.

Post Gen-X Halifax, present day. What's a bicycle-maintenance instructor with a super-condom conscious boyfriend to do when she finds out she's pregnant? That's the question posed to Kate (Megan Dunlop), the protagonist of Andrea Dorfman's debut. Her response: re-evaluate her relationship and munch boatloads of parsley in an attempt to induce a homeopathic abortion. We follow Kate as she hangs out with her idiosyncratic alterna-friends; talking, laughing, gossiping and mostly pontificating on the future of her and her boyfriend, Ollie (Mike LeBlanc).

Again and again Kate is bombarded with talk that she and Ollie are "lifers" and that she couldn't find anyone as perfect. One flaky conceptual artist pal pays Ollie the highest of compliments with "I think he's a male lesbian." Nonetheless, our girl begins to doubt; she relishes the past she's had with her intended but doesn't know if she's still in love. How else could one explain the secret tryst with a dumb but hunky pupil in her class known only as the "slow student"? Finally she can't hold it in any longer. She lays down the whole story - the pregnancy, the affair - and sleeps with Ollie one last time before they part.

Andrea Dorfman, a photographer from Halifax who previously made the award-winning shorts Swerve (1997) and Nine (1998), has worked as a cinematographer on countless East Coast independent shorts and music videos. Aside from some needlessly sappy sentimentality and a cute quirkiness to characters that sometimes seems a little too pat, the film is well written. The characters are three dimensional, and we empathize with Kate and get to know and like her friends, their flaws and all. Parsley Days is also very well shot. Dorfman, who took on the added responsibility as the cinematographer, has a keen eye for creating straightforward but beautiful frames in which the action can easily inhabit. Her use of simple imagery, such as the repetition of the couple in a canoe in happier times under a bright blue sky and Kate all bundled up in winter wear mid-conversation with friends from whom she feels isolated, is actually quite effective. Parsley Days is a small, warm, and for the most part, honest film. Like it's prota gonist, it's sweet, funny and interesting, but still has a few problems to work out.