Brotherhood (2019 film)

In the opening scenes, Arthur Lambden, packs a photo of his son in his backpack and meets the young members of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and their leader, Robert Butcher, on the path to Long Point, a camp on the shores of Balsam Lake in the Kawartha Lakes, which is located 145 kilometres northeast of Toronto. Both Butcher, who is the camp leader and Lambden, who is second in command, are veterans of World War I. Butcher tells Lambden that, while it was his first time operating a camping trip at Long Point, the group had camped at Clear Lake for many years. He told Lambden that the youth—whose fathers had died in the war or in the Spanish flu pandemic that followed the war—would benefit from being the rugged outdoors. Butcher is concerned that the boys of the generation that succeeded their own, were being, "feminized by their mothers and teachers." They begin their canoe trip late in the evening, and when their 30-foot war canoe is capsized during a sudden summer squall, drowning some, those that did survive spend the night in the frigid, dark lake waters clinging to the overturned canoe that is slowly sinking. The film flashes between scenes of the survivors struggling to ward of the freezing cold, and to fight fatigue and their fears, with lively, happy camp scenes earlier in the evening, of the boys engaging in camping activities designed for male bonding, creating a "band of brothers".[4]The movie focuses on the individual lives of some of the characters before the camping trip. George Waller played by Jake Manley, had an abusive father; Arthur Lambden, played by Brendan Fletcher, had survived the front lines in World War I only to return home as a carrier of the Spanish flu virus that killed his own wife and child; the two brothers—Will played by Sam Ashe Arnold and Jack played by Gage Munroe, whose father had been killed during the war; and Leonard, played by Matthew Isen, whose father had drowned just weeks before the camping trip and who feared water.[4] After surviving a harrowing night on the lake, only four remain alive and finally crawl onto the shores of Grand Island. They find makeshift paddles and return to Long Point.[4]

• Brendan Fehr - Robert Butcher
• Brendan Fletcher - Arthur Lambden
• Jake Manley - George Waller
• Matthew Isen - Leonard O'Hara
• Sam Ashe Arnold - Will
• Gage Munroe - Jack
• Mike Taylor - Mark
• Dylan Everett - Ray Allen
• Evan Marsh - Oliver Mardall
• Spencer MacPherson - Vernon Clarke

Principal photography on the film started in September 2017 in Michipicoten.[5]

The film received a private theatrical screening for residents of the Balsam Lake community in July 2019,[6] which was also attended by provincial lieutenant governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell.[7] It began screening on the Canadian film festival circuit in the fall, including at the Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival.[8]

Bell and Bramwell Tovey received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 8th Canadian Screen Awards in 2020, for the song "I've Got a Big One".

A December 5, 2019 Globe and Mail review said that Bell had succeeded in "stripping back the mythos of what it means 'to be a man'." He showed how strong one can be under duress "while embracing compassion, vulnerability and love."[9]

The National Post called it a "powerful, fight-for-survival" film.[10]

The San Francisco Bay Times said the "scenes in the lake are artfully filmed artfully filmed" and that Bell created a "sense in the open water that alternates between claustrophobia and momentum."[4]

The Now Toronto review said that the film "nearly sinks" and that is was "less than the sum of its parts."[11]

Original Cin said it was "interestingly fashioned as a “lost generation” metaphor" with some "loose ends."[12]

• Brotherhood at IMDb