By Emerson Williams
Watching Matt & Mara as a Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) student, you’ll recognize a lot of things. The pale lecture rooms of Kerr Hall, the sounds of cars whizzing by on Gerrard Street from Nelson Mandela Way and the voices of chatty characters at the intersection of College and Yonge Streets. The film is raw and familiar, down to every beat.
The titular university friends are played by Matt Johnson and Deragh Campbell as they reunite after university and stumble into an emotional affair. Mara is forced to confront her dreams and unfulfilled needs while struggling to feel known by her husband and peers. It’s a simple premise that TMU instructor, director and writer Kazik Radwanski didn’t let go to waste. He envelopes the audience in discomfort and heartache.
As an audience member, you might assume Johnson and Campbell have known each other for years—that’s because they have. The two starred together in Radwanski’s previous film, Anne at 13,000 Ft. It’s an understatement to call Radwanski’s choice to reunite the pair for this project an intelligent one.
Their dynamic in Matt & Mara is electric from the beginning, where they awkwardly encounter each other outside of the university poetry class Mara teaches. It’s an authentic trading of excitable, nervous energy that only crescendos from there.
It helps that Campbell is a triumphant talent. With complete ease, she takes form as a woman full of life who doesn’t let it spill out of herself. Mara forces herself to be an observer of art rather than a creator of it, despite her former life as a young, blooming poet. She lives and breathes the idea of being remarkable. This can be heard in Mara’s lines, but also in her subtle, emotional microexpressions. It’s as if Campbell can feed off the aching hearts of starving female artists in her audience as she dances the role, making each twitch of the face and furrow of the brow a heartfelt move to her routine. Combined with Radwanski’s intelligent close-up shots, Mara’s character serves as a perfect piece of personhood.
Johnson makes for a perfect scene partner to Campbell’s vivid shyness. He’s a booming presence as Matt, who’s character works like a snake charmer, coaxing the artistic curiosity out of Mara.
The film is filled with hilarious sessions of bickering between the pair, making any conflict impossible to look away from. These comedic sparring matches are vibrant, tennis-style back-and-forths. Johnson knows exactly when to escalate with progressively drier responses while Campbell naturally lights up, becoming the film’s necessary firecracker to show her opinionated spirit.
Radwanski can be credited for assembling the perfect entourage of artists to bring his screenplay to life. This team includes Toronto cinematographer Nikolay Michaylov who worked with Radwanski on Anne at 13,000 Ft., as well as several other accomplished international films.
Set on the walkway towards Niagara Falls’ “Maid of the Mist,” one of the film’s most notable scenes appears like a moving baroque painting with its attention to shadows and natural light. The shots are a beautiful, incidental way of utilizing the aggressive swarm of water, accurately capturing a beating moment between Matt and Mara as if the pelting mist is a push towards a shared vulnerability.
Matt & Mara is more than a ‘will-they-won’t-they,’ trope-led story. It’s a push-and-pull of the unveiling of one’s potential, a loving fight to grant someone the escape of being a mere guest in the lives of everyone else.
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