Joshua Then and Now

In Montreal the life of the writer Joshua Shapiro collapses in a scandal. From there the film goes back to explain how he got here: growing up in a Jewish neighbourhood, his boxer father's dealings outside the law, a marriage into the English upper class, and never quite belonging anywhere. The film is not interested in the scandal. It is interested in class colliding with identity: Joshua wants both to belong and to mock, and stays a stranger on both sides. His relationship with his father is its liveliest strand. The form is fragmented: jumps in time, flashbacks, a structure moving between Montreal and England. Ted Kotcheff directed, from Mordecai Richler's novel, with Richler writing the screenplay. The pair had made The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and this world comes from the same milieu. The film played in competition at Cannes in 1985. James Woods plays Joshua and Alan Arkin his father. Arkin's work is the most praised thing in it. Who it is for: viewers who like Canadian cinema and Richler's humour. Who it is not for: anyone wanting orderly narration. The time jumps are tiring, the novel's scope does not fit two hours and several characters are left half-drawn.