The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico

d, w: Michael Mabbott

I'll tackle this review with my prejudices acting as forward defense, just so we're clear. This film had me excited for one reason only, and his name is Matt Murphy. Taking the titular role of a hard partying, hard drinking, hard drugging, and hard loving lottery winner-turned-country and western star, Murphy puts in his first-ever on screen performance, but it's not his acting that was the draw... Murphy has been a favourite musician of mine since '93. His band, the Super Friendz was one of the first acts to follow Sloan out of Halifax, and was a large part of the early '90's Halifax Pop Explosion (which was a sort-of counter scene to Seattle's grunge explosion).

The Super Friendz broke up for a while, and Murphy moved to Toronto, soon headlining the Flashing Lights, an alt-pop force to be reconed with. An ep and two albums were released before the old Super Friendz gang reconnected and put out a delightful third album in 2003. After a spate of tours, Murphy seemingly disappeared, that is until he showed up as Guy Terrifico at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival (the film winning best Canadian picture).

As a big fan of the Super Friendz and Flashing Lights, I was curious what an early 70's twang inspired Murphy would sound like. Before I even saw the movie I found the soundtrack at HMV and snatched it up immediately. While it didn't catch at first, the songs began to seep into my subconscious, and when I finally made it to a screening a few weeks later, I felt an almost giddiness when I saw the songs being performed on-camera in the movie. I'm sure this would all mean a lot more if I was doing an review of the soundtrack (which is incredible, btw), but I'm supposed to be talking about the movie. And the movie, well, it works hard to win you over.

Writer/director Michael Mabbott constructed Terrifico out of one part Canadian experience, one part affinity for the sound of the era, and one part Gram Parsons bio. The film is structured as a documentary around the central character, whose life and career were tragically cut short, and we're led to believe was hugely important to the scene. The credibility of Terrifico is defined by using real Country and Western music legends like Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Blue Rodeo and Ronnie Hawkins to relay their memories of the man. Mabbot uses old cameras and processing techniques to age his film to capture "vintage" performances or recording sessions or parties centered around Terrifico.

It's not as winged or sharp a mocumentary as "A Mighty Wind" or "This Is Spinal Tap" but I don't think it intended to be. There is an affable candor to it that sweeps you in, and the character of Terrifico is almost larger than life, Elvis-esque in many ways, and though perhaps a little stiff as an actor, Murphy excels as a performer both vocally and physically. Terrifico seems an extension of his own stage persona, yet underneath the booze and drug addled hyper haze, there's a tagible sadness that the music is getting lost. The movie comes off more as a doc, rather than mock.

The "documentary" element intends to let you in on music's biggest secret for the past 30 years, and it feels like it... it feels like you're being let on the inside of the scene, into something special that only performers and producers from that era knew, kind of how "the Aristocrats" lets you in on the biggest inside joke in comedy. At the same time, Mabbott is also providing an educated analysis of the new folk-country scene that was kicked off by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson in the late '60s and carried by Jennings and Kristofferson amongst others. This analysis is spot on, but used to place Terrifico in the times as well, and thus somewhat undermines itself. The personalities of the era seem strong enough to hold an actual documentary of their own and it almost saddens me to know that we were frauded into believing how inspiring guy was to all the musicians interview.

Though the ending was a tad obvious, "The Life and Hard Times.." is a highly enjoyable, satisfying and charming film, with a sweetly impressive soundtrack.