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Stranded with the man she defended
The setup
In Someone's Daughter, the attorney, Sam, and her former client, Paul, have to work together to find their way to civilization from a tiny island deep in Quebec's Eastern Townships. She defended him fifteen years earlier, and he was acquitted. As the story goes on, she becomes less and less certain that he did not commit the crime.
Cast and setting
Pascale Bussières plays Sam and François Arnaud plays Paul, and the two of them carry nearly the whole film. Peter Outerbridge has a small role at the very beginning, and that is the only other face. The film was shot in the Eastern Townships, where the forests are thick, and the nature around them becomes its own character as they try to get out of it.
How it plays
The film is slow and quiet, and it leans on the performances and the interactions between the two leads. Quick offhand lines fill in character as it goes, such as a mention that Paul runs in triathlons and hints at why Sam is good at surviving in the wild. It is billed as a thriller, but it plays more like a darker drama with no big surprises. Wiebke von Carolsfeld, a German-Canadian filmmaker whose quiet dramas have been lauded at TIFF, co-wrote and directed it, and it had its world premiere at Fantasia.
Why do the Eastern Townships have English names?
After the American Revolution, the British Crown opened land south of the St. Lawrence to settlement through the township system, a survey grid used for land grants. Many early settlers were Loyalists and families from New England, and they gave the region towns with English names such as Stanstead and Compton. The area is a stretch of Appalachian foothills lying along the Vermont border.
Why can an acquittal still leave doubt?
A criminal trial in Canada asks whether the Crown has proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A not guilty verdict means the Crown fell short of that standard. It is not a finding by the court that the accused is innocent. The verdict recorded in such cases is simply "not guilty."
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