Year: 2005
Language: English
Format: 35mm Colour
Runtime: 92 min
Director: Aubrey Nealon
Producer: George Baptist, Lael McCall, Aubrey Nealon
Writer: Aubrey Nealon
Cinematographer: David Geddes
Editor: Karen Porter
Sound: Paul Sharpe
Music: Ohad Benchetrit, Justin Small
Cast: Matt Craven, Pascale Hutton, Sarah Lind, Waneta Storms, Kett Turton, Kris Lemche, Michael Hogan
Production Company: Idaho Peak Productions, Ltd.

Rebelling against one’s parents is generally considered a rite of passage for teenagers, but twenty-seven-year-old Caleb (Kris Lemche) somehow missed this important phase. Maybe it’s because he was raised in British Columbia’s majestic Kootenays by laid-back, hippie parents who didn’t give him much to rebel against. Either way, his growing dissatisfaction with his life – not to mention his increasingly strained relationship with his father – has Caleb making up for lost time.

Caleb and his father, Jim (Michael Hogan), run a small carpentry shop and relate more as friends than family. But when the idealistic and ornery Jim turns down a lucrative contract for reasons Caleb considers trite and inconsequential, tensions between the two begin to mount. The situation is only exacerbated by the arrival of Matthew (Matt Craven), an old friend of Jim’s who, in addition to taking a fatherly shine to Caleb, has plans to open a high-end fishing lodge in the area. Caleb and Jim’s differing views on this enterprise drive them further apart, finally forcing Caleb to make his own choices and forge his own path.

Aubrey Nealon’s assured, semi-autobiographical feature debut offers a gentle and compelling look at life in the rural B.C. interior – a region whose lush, evocative grandeur is wonderfully captured by cinematographer David Geddes, and whose quirky eccentricity is exemplified by Caleb’s burgeoning relationship with a newly arrived single mother (Pascale Hutton), and his amiably confrontational rapport with a comical pair of hippie squatters (Sarah Lind and Kett Turton).

A Simple Curve premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival® and garnered many warm reviews upon its art-house release. It was named one of Canada’s Top Ten of 2005 by an independent, national panel of filmmakers, programmers, journalists and industry professionals.