Mary Goes Round

Mary works as a substance abuse counsellor, teaching people to stop drinking. One night she is caught driving under the influence and loses her job. She goes back to the town she was born in, Niagara Falls. There she learns that the father she has not seen for years has cancer and wants something from her: to meet the half-sister she has never known. Molly McGlynn's Canadian film does not tell addiction as a lesson. Mary is both the one who helps and the one who needs help, and the film does not resolve that. Aya Cash takes the lead, with Sara Waisglass as the sister. The tone is dry and the humour bitter; the telling ends without offering an easy reconciliation.