Melodious Inkwell: New Waterford Girl

First published in Marigold, Sept. 12, 2000

I'm a New Waterford Girl. No really, I am. OK, so I wasn't born here, but we moved here from Glace Bay - a town about 20 minutes away - when I was 4, and I've lived here ever since. That counts. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard they were filming a movie called New Waterford Girl. Or New Waterford Girls, depending on the source and how much beer they'd had. We locals had fun hearing about friends that were cast in it, and seeing some scenes being shot. One scene was filmed in the graveyard across the street, where my grandparents are buried. I remember that day. It was a red-letter day in ol' NW; they spent all day shooting it with the big movie trailers lined up and down the road in front of my house. That was definitely the excitement for the day.

We're easily amused here in NW.

Just to prove I can do a segue when needed, this movie catches exactly that feeling of emptiness inherent in NW. A small coal mining town with very few activites, we are easily distracted by such exciting things as vague glimpses of unknown movie actors. Or putting soap and water in a windex bottle and squirting the earwigs out of the fence with it. Or watching paint dry.

Even now, 25 years after the time frame of this movie, we're just as bored and just as desperate to get out of here as Mooney, the main character. Mooney Pottie is a frustrated 15 year old played by a fabulous actor called Liane Balaban. Balaban hasn't had much experience acting, which surprised me, as she's quite good. She had merely a short stint as a dead body and a few high school performances. Barely out of high school and now a journalism student in Toronto somewhere, she portrays the tormented artist Mooney with what looks like practiced ease, perhaps funneling her own creativity into the character. Much more believable than the corpse.

Mooney lives in a crowded house with her oh-so-Catholic family. She sleeps in a nook. Yes, a nook. It's an area which probably was meant as a large storage area with the capacity to hold things like the sewing machine, or the leftover socks from the dryer. She uses a sheet as a door. She's sick of being stuck in the same old boring town with the same old boring drunken people. Mooney wants to get out of NW, and she wants it badly.

I can't say as I blame her, actually.

I think my favorite line was when she's hitchhiking with a sign saying "Mexico." A car pulls up and the driver says, "I'm only going as far as Sydney," [the city, about 20km away]. And she shrugs and gets in; as if anywhere is better than here.

Balaban is so good, you can't stop watching her mopey Mooney - that is, until Lou shows up. Then you can't decide which to keep your eyes on, as both are fascinating. Lou is a displaced Brooklyn boxer, played by Tara Spencer-Nairn, a slightly more established actor from Vancouver. Tough and loveable, Lou helps Mooney hatch a plan for escaping NW - getting some of the biggest laughs along the way with her wide-eyed innocent look while being anything but innocent. Of course, Mooney is dark and brooding, while Lou is blond and carefree. Hey, we can't escape every stereotype ever made in every movie, now can we? And besides, visual and emotional foils work.

Never forget, this is a comedy. A bit of a black comedy, but comedy nonetheless. My mom (who actually lived in NW during the 60s & 70s) and I cracked up in between pointing out actors we knew while watching it; but the rest of the theatre was laughing just as hard as we were.

From what I hear it also went over quite well in areas totally unfamiliar with my pathetic little hometown. Areas which include the Atlantic and Toronto Film Festivals, earning the Margaret Perry Award for Best Nova Scotia Produced Film, the AFF Craft Award for Sound Design, and the Best Canadian Feature at the AFF, and a Congratulations from the CityTV Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film jury to Liane Balaban as an actor, at the TFF .

Mary Walsh, of "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" fame, makes a strong statement as Mooney's mom, Cookie. Cookie is a typical lower- class mom - wanting the best for her children, but helplessly unable to provide. Walsh says of the movie, "The script is quite bitter-sweet. It's actively funny and at the same time it's walking that thin line you're on when in any minute you could cry or laugh, it could go either way." She is, of course, brilliant in this role.

Aside from the main characters, several local - and not-so-local - celebrities show their faces in this film, including Ashley Macisaac, Bette MacDonald, and that chick who used to beat me up in grade school.

Although in general I loved this movie - its comedy, its sincerity, and its way of presenting truth - minor things bugged me, things that none of you would probably notice. For instance, during certain scenes, I'd be watching the background and I'd scream "You're in Glace Bay!!!" at the screen. Of course, then people would throw things at me, at which point I'd sit down and merely mumble "that's not New Waterford" under my breath.

As the official New Waterford Girl website says, "New Waterford Girl was shot entirely on location in Dominion, North Sydney, Glace Bay, Low Point, Sydney, and of course, New Waterford (population almost 10,000)." Sure, these are all within 30km or so of here, but notice how NW is mentioned last? That's because there's very little NW used at all. As a matter of fact, I can only vaguely recall two or three locations which were NW proper. I suppose that's because all of the 'old' buildings and areas in NW are gone. Mooney's house, for example, is a house in Glace Bay which my mom recognized. The style, mind you, is perfectly NW, but the actual location is 24km or so, thataway.

The main drag in the movie wasn't actually in NW, although it really is that boring here - and it may actually be smaller. There really are places in the woods where people go to drink, but the last time I checked no one ever burst into song around an oil drum fire unless there was lighter fluid involved, and the song included the words "I wish I was in Sherbrook now."

I do, however, have a list of places and people in the movie that I recognized. I just know you're dying to hear all about it. I can see you backing away from your monitors in an attempt to see better. There you go. A little farther and the glare will be gone. Wait, that's too far! Get back here!

That's better. This church is about 5 minutes down the road from my house, and it's on the road where Mooney and Lou are in the car driving around while trying to come up with a plan. It also happens to be the road I take to work every day, and it's simply gorgeous. The graveyard scene is three houses down from mine, and the very large tombstone behind Lou's head (huge cross with circle) is Father Miles', my mother's father's brother! I actually leaned sideways trying to get a look at the tombstone behind Lou. Like if I moved, I could see around her better. Like that fuzzy blob up there is any clearer than the 30 second walk I never take to look at the actual thing.

Small things made me happy, like the posters hanging around the walls depicting real NW places like The Strand and The French Club.

Mooney's sisters, Darlene and Betty-Anne, are real-life sisters Cassie and Krista MacDonald from New Waterford, and they do quite well in this film. They get to sing. There must be something in the water around here, because boy can our girls sing! Krista went to school with my little brother; and as a matter of fact we stopped to talk to her in Halifax just after the movie opened.

Ok, ok, I won't bore you TOO much. Really. Hey, wake up! I'll just say I also recognized about 1/4 of the extras and 1/2 of the locations. My brother could probably tell you the names of more of the extras, cause they were mostly his age, not mine.

The movie itself was just too funny. Tricia Fish, the screenwriter, has a superb sense of irony and comedy, and the actors' timing was quite good.

The Caper Accent each actor who wasn't a native spent a tedious 5 minutes learning turned out ok. When someone had an accent, it was the proper accent - the actors did not necessarily keep to it, mind you, but it sounded right in bits and blobs. We're a buncha real hicks 'round here, I tell ya b'y. By the way, it's not pronounced "New Waterford." It's pronounced "nehWAHhhtaferd." Just for future reference.

As a New Waterfordian - er, New Waterforder - er, native of New Waterford, I really enjoyed this movie. The culture depicted of drunken parties, bullies and pregnant chicks is, sadly, hardly exaggerated. Mooney is a plucky gal ready to do anything to get her career, worthy of admiration despite the lies and deception. The audience actually begins to care what happens to her, which is interesting because if she actually lived here, no one around her would give a damn. The scenery is great, the laughs are just plentiful enough, and dammit, this is a good story!

I recommend this film to anyone who wants a short peek at the lives of real people, in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business and the only way out is humiliation and exile.

I'm just glad I always had my own room.