The Madones: Scrappy Canadian Film an Homage To Poets And Misfits

By Liz Braun

Rating: B

Singing sisters are at the centre of The Madones, a film about one family’s legacy of music and madness.

The three Madone sisters’ claim to fame is a single hit song called “Mad One.” Now middle-aged and somewhat down on their luck, the women have other pursuits. Gladys (Lenore Zann) has left town, Stella (Tara Doyle) runs a singing school, and Rose (Lucy Decoutere) is mostly consumed by grief and her own poor mental health.

Stella and Rose’s adult son Maurice (T. Thomason) do their best to keep an eye on Rose, but she seems to be slipping into psychosis. The family secret — albeit not much of a secret, given that “mad ones” is embedded in their surname — is mental illness. Maybe.

That bleak landscape notwithstanding, The Madones is essentially comedic, a strange and appealing homage to poets and misfits punctuated by singing, sarcasm, and family bickering.

Among the oddballs in the Madones’ orbit, for example, is Stella’s ex-boyfriend Adonis (Mark A. Owen), fresh out of jail and already hard at work on an idiotic kidnapping scheme. Fortunately, Adonis’ victim, Wayne (Hans Boggild) is a mild-mannered fan of the Madones and has his own musical aspirations.

Will Rose lose the plot entirely? Will Gladys ever return to town? Could The Madones make a comeback one day? It all remains to be seen.

The Madones, shot in black and white, was written and directed by Canadian filmmaker-actor-attorney Barrie Dunn, known to many as Ricky’s sort-of dad Ray in Trailer Park Boys. Dunn makes a brief cameo here as a befuddled physician; the cast includes Reid Price, Aria Publicover, and playwright Bryden MacDonald.

The Madones is populated by characters with hard edges and lived-in faces, but there’s an innocence to it all (and to the shaggy dog storytelling) that gives the film an appealing Jim Jarmusch vibe — barely controlled chaos, and you’re glad to witness it. It’s a slender outing, in some ways, but a satisfying one.

The Madones. Written and directed by Barrie Dunn. Starring Lucy Decoutere, Tara Doyle and T. Thomason. In theatres, February 16 and available March 26 on VOD/digital.