Being Canadian (2015)

(On Cable TV, July 2020) As someone who actually wrote a 4000-word essay titled “Being Canadian” elsewhere on this site, it would stand to reason that sooner or later I would make my way to a movie of the same name. In Being Canadian, comedian Robert Cohen sets out to explore the national psyche by driving across Canada from East to West, and splicing in interviews with various Canadians (some of them more famous than others—the list of interview subjects reads like a who’s who of Canadian celebrities, with a focus on those living in Los Angeles) and anyone else willing to talk to him about Canada. The focus here is relentlessly comedic —a wintertime trip to Ottawa is blatantly spliced in the summertime narrative, some French is mistranslated to create some language tension, punchlines pepper the running time, and every interview subject jockeys for jokes (Naturally enough, considering the writer-director’s network of comedy contacts). Still, there’s quite a bit of content here supported by the entertaining nature of Being Canadian—the immense grab-bag of insecurities, quirks and contradictions that make up the Canadian identity is well represented, perhaps in more uncomfortable detail than expected. It ends up with an inspiring sequence set (where else?) at a Canada Day parade. It’s a fun film, although clearly designed by Canadians for Canadians. If there’s any criticism I’d make, it would be that the film has a very Anglo-Canadian perspective—some of the more uncomfortable questions raised here (such as the desperate need to distinguish oneself from Americans) are substantially different when seen from a French Canadian (or bilingual) perspective—Cohen dispenses with the French question in something like ten minutes, but its absence lingers over the rest of the film. Still, if there’s any lesson to be taken from Being Canadian, it’s that Canada is made of different perspectives brought together for an undefinable whole that nonetheless unites us. That’s as good as any conclusion can be about Canada, and five years after production, the film plays nearly as freshly as it did in 2015.