The Maiden
Graham Foy’s feature debut is an atmospheric drama about camaraderie, grief and emotional crises as experienced by two teenagers in Alberta, Canada.
Colton and Kyle are best friends. They happily roam their small town and its environs, killing time doing ordinary, stupid, teenager stuff: destroying an old TV, spray-painting graffiti under a train bridge, skateboarding down a bumpy dirt slope. But their goofing also reveals glimmers of tenderness, such as in the scene where they find a dead cat, place it on a tiny raft with a bouquet of wildflowers, and set it adrift downriver.
When a terrible accident takes Kyle away, Colton is overwhelmed. He revisits the places he went with Kyle, as though hoping to hear an echo of his friend’s presence. People in the community try to reach out, but grief seems to have rendered Colton mute. Meanwhile, Colton’s classmate Whitney experiences her own deeply internalized emotional crisis, prompting her to set out into the woods in search of some kind of peace.
Graham Foy shot his film in Calgary and Cochrane, Alberta, where pristine nature is never far away. The film begins as a realistic drama but after finding Whitney’s diary, the film takes us into a magical mirror world, full of impressionistic images. Is this a dream? Life after death?