Blue Heron (12A)

(Subtitled)

Sophy Romvari’s deeply personal debut traces a Hungarian immigrant family’s turbulent new life in Canada through the eyes of its youngest child.

Blue Heron is a sun-bleached portrait of a dysfunctional family of six, told through a series of hazy pre-millennial memories following their migration from Hungary.

It is the mid-90s and a little girl called Sasha (Eylul Guven) lives with her two brothers and older half-brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) on Vancouver Island. They have just arrived at their new house, having previously moved around a lot for reasons we shall soon learn. Their mum and dad, played by Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa, are Hungarian and switch to the mother tongue when they don’t want the kids to know what they are saying.

Despite Sasha making friends in town, the mother discourages her from inviting them to their house, lest gossip about her brother, who exhibits increasingly erratic, sometimes dangerous behaviour, spread and cause her to become socially isolated. The film then dips into a timeline involving an older version of Sasha (Amy Zimmer).

Sombre and painful, complex yet unshowy; Blue Heron is a wonderful and emotionally generous film