Review: Gander

When I first heard that CBC was making a movie based on the effects of 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, my instant reaction was 'awesome!'.

Canadians don't exactly like to boast about their achievements, but if there's one time when the boasting is completely called for, this is it - a small town in Newfoundland took in nearly its entire population in stranded tourists, people gave up food, blankets, showers out of their own homes, businesses shut down so their employees could help with the volunteer effort, and striking school bus drivers returned to work to help out. The full story can be found at, oddly enough, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and it's worth your time to read it.

So I had high hopes for this movie. Ordinarily, I'm bothered by Canadianicity for the sake of Canadianicity - movies set in Toronto or Montreal or Saskatoon, with characters who have allegedly spent their entire lives there, still feeling a need to shove Canadianisms down the audience's throat. Yet here it would be okay - the story was being told from the perspective of the passengers, the outsiders.

And it started off very well. We're in a plane, about to take off from London, destination New York. We learn the backstories of various characters. Stuff (mostly inconsequential) happens.

Now we see the scene in Gander, where the two air traffic controllers (the only two for the airport) are getting ready for another day of one or two arrivals. Other characters are developed.

Then the news breaks of the attacks. The airline crew realize they'll have to land in Gander, while the Mayor of Gander goes on the radio and asks the community to help out however they can.

Passengers land, most are distraught. After a long time, they're allowed off the plane. One girl has an aunt missing in Manhattan. A young American of Muslim descent takes offense at anybody who blames Arabs for the attacks or looks at him funny.

Then, inexplicably, the movie somehow becomes a romance. A British girl who was on the plane, heading for a new job in New York, falls in love with one of the air traffic controllers and begins to think maybe she should stay in Gander rather than continue on. A thirtysomething British man and woman flirt awkwardly and then decide it doesn't have to be awkward. These two storylines take up what seems like almost all of the second half of the movie.

And the rest of the second half is other clichés. The Ugly American who believes he's entitled to everything even though there are thousands of people in the same situation as him, who sort of but doesn't really come to see the error of his ways. The aforementioned Muslim-American who is repulsed by a less moderate Muslim on the same plane and sees why he was treated the way he was.

And lost in all of this? The original story. The notion - which would be extremely difficult to believe if I didn't know this story beforehand - that there is a community willing to give up absolutely everything to help those in need.

I get that a good movie needs melodrama and characterization. They didn't even do a bad job of it - the romances were decent at least by CBC standards, and I didn't even mind any of the stereotypes other than the Ugly American. But for a movie called 'Gander', I was expecting a movie about Gander, not a movie that happened to be set in Gander.

Overall grade? C-plus. It was good for what it was, but it wasn't what it should have been. Not even close.

--Ryan