The Heartbreak Kids
Victoria Day peeks inside North York’s teenage wasteland, circa 1988, where life bites. Hard By Jason Anderson
Young Ben Spektor (Mark Rendall) contemplates what parents
just don’t understand
Image credit: Annabel Reyes
Ten years ago, the special relationship between a guy and a pie launched a flood of moronic teen movies, with youthful rites of passage serving as little more than excuses for crude hijinks. Then along came Juno, the snarky yet endearing tale of a knocked-up high schooler, to spur a new breed of coming-of-age stories—movies darker, more complex and infinitely more interesting. Victoria Day, the feature debut by the local writer David Bezmozgis (Natasha and Other Stories), is downbeat, spare and perfectly suited to the sobering climate that’s swept the mainstream (where Harry Potter’s crew and Twilight’s star-crossed lovers find themselves facing life-and-death dilemmas far greater than the prospect of losing it on prom night). Haunting and evocative, Victoria Day charts the travails of Ben Spektor, a North York kid whose interests include pot-fuelled field parties, firework faceoffs and becoming the next Wayne Gretzky. But these lighter matters are juxtaposed against his troubling encounters with girls and the disappearance of his hockey teammate—an incident that recalls the real-life case of Benji Hayward, the 14-year-old who died after getting high at the CNE in 1988. So much for the greatest years of our lives.
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