Little Lorraine: NS Miners Face the Question, Is Trafficking Drugs to Feed Your Family Wrong?
By John Kirk
Rating: A-
Stealing a loaf of bread to support your starving family is one thing, but running an entire drug-smuggling ring off the coast of Nova Scotia is another.
That’s the basic premise in Little Lorraine.
It’s difficult to assess what’s more compelling in this story: the characters, real Canadian salt-of-the-earth people who were that desperate enough to go through with the scheme, or the actual simplicity and near-success of the scheme itself.
Joshua Close and Stephen Amell in Little Lorraine
Based on the song Lighthouse in Little Lorraine, written by folksinger Adam Baldwin, it’s based on a lesser-known piece of Canadiana. It forces the audience to consider the morality of miners in a depressed town in Nova Scotia in the 1980s, suddenly discovering the lucrative appeal of running drugs back and forth to the US. In fact, about 100 tonnes were moved between the States and Cape Breton between 1986 and 1991.
Stephen Amell plays Jimmy, a tee-totalling family man who works in the mines to support his loving family of a wife, Emma (Auden Thornton) and two kids, one in a wheelchair. When the local mine explodes, resulting in the deaths of ten local miners, it closes down, instantly putting an entire community into economic chaos.
It’s an instantly relatable theme and if you know anything about Nova Scotia in the 80s, it was a tough time for the province and it’s especially poignant to a Canadian audience.
Seeing Amell in this thoughtful role, compared to superhero roles like Arrow, definitely adds to his range of talent. Humble and possessed of a deep-seated conscience, his is certainly a dramatic role that speaks to his ability.
Jimmy’s family is picture-perfect. He and his lovely young wife are staunch parishioners of the local church and surrounded by small-town friends and family who love them dearly. Everyone has each other’s back, and it’s this vibe that we immediately gravitate to – it’s a slice of Maritime heaven.
Into every paradise there comes a serpent. In this case, it’s in the form of Jimmy’s Uncle Huey (played by veteran Canadian actor, Stephen McHattie (Watchmen, Pontypool). Huey is a shady character who has a boat and, like a snake hunting a wounded bird, enlists his unemployed and desperate nephew to join him as they ostensibly fish for lobster.
The real plan is to sail out to international waters, rendezvous with a foreign vessel and retrieve dropped drugs from the ocean. When recovered, Huey has a contact in the local funeral home who will arrange for distribution.
It’s a perfect plan, yet the real crux of this story is the pressure on the consciences of Jimmy and his cousin and how it affects them throughout the course of the film. Jimmy agonizes over his actions, his simple life and strong moral compass are at odds with the choices he makes. Yet everything is made instantly right when he sees the effects his filthy lucre has on the welfare of his family.
A Cape Breton miner in the 1980s risked his life going into the shaft every day, yet this daily sacrifice was removed when the mine was no longer there. Faced with destitution, any one of these men would gladly take the risk that accompanied cocaine smuggling and no audience member would blame them.
There’s the draw: Little Lorraine is a story that taps into the one of the most primal elements of the human condition: the need to protect and provide for family. It is impossible to be unmoved by its tale. In fact, you almost want them to get away with it.
Even the local priest has difficulty condemning their actions. Father Williams, played by Sean Astin, knows his parishioners like they were his own family and is aware of the precarious situation the town is in. Read our interview with Astin about the sense of spirituality he experienced in performing this role.
For a small-budget film, the inclusion of names like McHattie, Amell, Astin and Rhys Darby make this film a wonder. The inclusion of debut actor J Balvin as Lozano, the Interpol officer tracking the case, is also inspired, adding a bit of ironic comedy to the mix.
Personally, I can’t help but feel for Jimmy’s plight. Seeing Uncle Huey slither around his family in the guise of a long-lost relative is nauseating. Seeing the depressed community and the state of economic desperation that forces Jimmy and his cousin into this work is tragic. This is the bedrock for this reality-based film’s success.
Little Lorraine. Directed by Andy Hines. Written and directed by Andy Hines and Adam Baldwin. Cast: Stephen Amell, Sean Astin, J Balvin, Auden Thornton, Matt Walsh, Rhys Darby, Stephen McHattie, Steve Lund, Stephanie “Sugar” Lyn Beard, Hugh Thompson, Mike Dopud, Kaelen Ohm
Little Lorraine sees its theatrical release on April 17th.