Tales for an Accelerated Culture

It was like watching a Douglas Coupland novel come to life. Which was appropriate as Everything’s Gone Green, which played at the Toronto Film Festival on Tuesday, was written by Coupland himself.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Green was either a discarded chapter of his recent novel jPod (which just got named to the Giller prize long list) or an early draft. There were the parents running a marijuana grow-op in their suburban Vancouver basement; the brother involved in selling real estate to absentee Hong Kong millionaires; the late 20-something slacker working at a job he doesn’t care about who gets involved with an Asian gang. I finished jPod this summer and so the similarities are fresh in my mind.

And it works. Coupland tells great stories filled with quirky characters and a clear love for Vancouver, which was all perfectly captured by first-time feature director Paul Fox. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Coupland visited the set and told Fox, "That's freaky, it's like stepping into my own brain.” Seeing as nobody has yet to bring one of his novels to the big screen, this counts as a huge achievement.

It was fun and I hope people get a chance to see it for themselves. For those out west, it will open the Vancouver Film Festival soon and it has Canadian distribution, so it will be interesting to see if it can find an audience.

Pics: Above, a scene from Everything's Gone Green. Below, Paulo Costanzo at the Paramount screening.