Fantasia festival 2020 – Film Review – Yankee
New Yorker Skylar holes up in industrialised Quebec with her cousin Kev after a row with her father goes seriously south. Ensnared in a poverty trap, small-time drug dealer Kev identifies her potential as a cash cow on the local underground fighting circuit.
Skylar is placed under the supervision of ex-fighter and heavyweight cokehead Chuck as she seeks to hone her primitive penchant for brawling. However, as her skills augment, so does her desire for autonomy and she becomes determined to break the cycle of violence that imprisons her, at any cost.
A string of despondent life choices, precipitated by the duel desperations of addiction and corrupted loyalty, sees our three protagonists turn their rage on each other and raises doubts of who is actually using who.
Stéphan Beaudoin’s granular drama is preoccupied with the grubby mechanics of survival rather than the blood-crusted lip gloss of illegal street combat. Ignore the ridiculous comparisons that will inevitably shadow it because Yankee is far more Fish Tank than Fight Club. The scrapping is nothing more than a backdrop for the acerbic classist commentary and heartbreaking selfishness of its narrative. Yes, it is brutal at times, but the crunch of the punches are nowhere near as damaging as the casual emotional violence.
Professional stuntwoman Devon Slack is sensational as the mega moody “sour puss” Skylar. It is astonishing that this is her first lead role. Spending an inordinate amount of time with an ice pack pressed to her battered face, and the rest of the time scowling into the middle distance, she radiates tangible credibility and it’s mesmerising. Her screen presence, magnetism and aura of authenticity could well see her in high demand for meaty martial arts performances that also require lean acting chops.
It may well be Slack’s movie but the supporting cast underpin her efforts with nuanced portrayals of their own. Jean-Philippe Perras is more unhinged than a crack house door as cousin Kevin, a man to be feared for his savage unpredictability rather than physical presence. Chuck is brought to life enigmatically by Émile Mailhiot, the French Canadian dubbing voice of the Harry Potter franchise. A hulking globule of paranoid coke sweat with a recreational tolerance that would force Tony Montana to lay down his little friend for a round of admiring applause.
Quebec looks simultaneously sumptuous and coldly depressing through the lens of cinematographer Thomas Sicotte, with a mellow colour palette that glows in juxtaposition to the stark interiors of destitution and narcotic neglect.
Sophie-Anne Beaudry’s naturalistic, often sardonic, screenplay is uncluttered and believable. Astute in its observations of the mental and physical accoutrements of substance abuse and self-medication, it marks her as a writer to watch out for. Particularly impressive is how the dialogue dips in and out of English and French, often reflecting the mood of the speaker thorough linguistic preference. This is both a subtle tuning of the dramatic engine and an ingenious seaway for the cross-traffic of cultural difference.
Beaudoin’s picture is a powerful social document reflecting the perversity of our times, both in the mercenary nature of the modern human, and the pressures that turn us on each other through the conduit of self-contempt.
Sick and tired of being everyone’s emotional and physical punching bag, there is more than a sliver of Skylar embedded in our innermost selves. We all recognise when the kid gloves of decency need to be upgraded to the knuckle dusters of self-preservation. For Skylar, it is a question of whether her moralistic fortitude will ever recuperate from the insidious osmosis of dog eat dog socio-politics.
Written on the back of one fight starters jacket is the mantra: ‘Bad choices make good stories’ and that, in a nutshell, describes the immersive draw of Yankee.
★★★★
World Premiere Fantasia Film Festival 2020 On Demand Buy Ticket
Drama | CANADA, QUEBEC | 2020 | 85 mins | Productions Tomifobia | Dir. Stéphan Beaudoin | With: Orphée Ladouceur-Nguyen, Maxime Savaria, Devon Slack
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