There are several harsh realities about drug usage that it feels like society is unwilling to confront, but one of the most prevalent today remains that everyone with drug problems has somehow chosen it, and as a result deserves what they get.  There’s also a perception that everyone with a problem congregates into ghettos in our cities.  Neither of these is true, of course.  Hard drugs like heroin affect people from all walks and stages of life, and in all kinds of communities.  Tight Lettuce is one such story, that of a rural family with one member struggling with an addiction.

Joel (Dakota Daulby) is a well-adjusted man.  He is in a healthy relationship with Taylor (Christie Burke); his mother and grandmother (Maxim Roy and France Castel) are constants in his life.  So too is his father, Bodo (Emmanuel Bilodeau).  Bodo has been a heroin user for Joel’s entire life, and more recently the addition of fentanyl to his routine has reduced him from a reasonably functioning member of the family to something decidedly less than.  He works odd jobs, but can’t hold one down.  Once the owner of a successful roofing business, now he can’t even last past a day as a labourer on a job site. 

Bodo is, to put it mildly, a mess, and while everyone is at their wits’ end with what to do about him, Joel remains steadfast in his support.  It’s an effective inversion of the story, where usually it’s the parent trying to save their child; in this story, it’s the child trying to save his father. In either case, the question is how much can one take?  How many destructive actions and breaches of trust before relationships are damaged beyond repair? 

Bilodeau’s performance as Bodo. He captures all the nuances and hallmarks of a person struggling with these addictions, including not only the big manic moments of happiness, but the moments of paranoia when he attempts to rehab, and deep regret when he realizes that he’s let Joel down -or is about to. He also embodies the physicality of a man uncomfortable in his own skin, desperate for stillness but unable to curb his ceaseless movement.  

Tight Lettuce paints a heartbreaking portrait and offers no easy answers. When the story draws to a close, things have stayed the same as much as they have changed. The film is based on a true story –home video footage of the real Bodo plays over the film’s end credits– and hopefully that really hammers home how common a story this actually is because Bodo, as energetic, compelling, and tragic as his story is, is not a unique figure. We would all do well to remember that, and hopefully Tight Lettuce helps us do so.

MOVIE TITLE HERE

Rating:

3.5/5