A hilarious family comedy of
misunderstandings and quirky characters set an American Indian-run ski lodge.
This is a movie I saw three
and a half years ago at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, which
was a year after its premiere at Sundance. (It got the third highest audience
rating, 4.56 out of 5, of any non-documentary at the Philly festival. One of the two
films that beat it is the Korean My Sassy Girl, one of my favorites.) It’s a comedy about
the characters at an American Indian-run ski lodge. (It was filmed at Robert
Redford’s Sundance resort in Utah.) The story revolves around a series of
misunderstandings, but the humor stems from the various personalities working
at the place. There’s a romantic-comedy element as well. I happened to look
this up on IMDb a few weeks ago and saw that it had never been released on video*; nor
had its writer-director, Kate Montgomery, made a film before or since. I have
no idea why it’s getting a theatrical release at this late date, but it’s one
of the flat-out funniest films I’ve seen. I assume the fact that its biggest
star is the character actor M. Emmet Walsh has something to do with its
relative obscurity and its relatively limited release. Despite this and its
film festival pedigree, it’s not at all highbrow. Too frivolous to be a
critics’ darling, too little publicized to be a mainstream hit, it’s likely to
have a rather short run, I suspect, but I think it’s a safe bet that a better
family film won’t be playing this holiday season.
* It has since the writing of this review; Montgomery only post-credit is as executive producer of a 2010 documentary.
circulated 12/1/05 via email and posted/slightly revised 9/21/13
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