Brownstein: Elder abuse meets its match in Montreal crime thriller The G

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A gruff, irate woman goes in for a checkup at a doctor’s office. The well-meaning physician asks about her occupation.

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“A socialite — retired!” she fires back.

Not exactly.

Meet Granny, a no-nonsense senior not to be messed with. She is at the core of The G, a gripping crime thriller in which our cantankerous Granny seeks to exact revenge on a sinister legal guardian, a brute appointed against her will who places her and her husband in an elder-care (a real oxymoron here) facility and rips off the couple for whatever paltry savings they had left.

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This is the latest from Montrealer Karl R. Hearne, who got a special jury mention for director at last summer’s Fantasia International Film Festival. The G, which has already seen wide release throughout the film world, begins a weeklong run this weekend in Montreal as well as in 10 other cities across Canada.

The first presentation, Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Cineplex Forum, will be followed by a Q&A with Hearne and Fantasia artistic director Mitch Davis. The Montreal screenings will be with French subtitles.

No surprise that Granny — magnificently portrayed by Dale Dickey — has left audiences cheering. This is one badass grandma.

“I’m not a nice person, but I do have other qualities,” she tells one would-be suitor in a tone sounding a lot more like Liam Neeson than Mary Poppins.

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The G is something of a welcome rarity: a film that touches on the alarmingly fast-growing epidemic of elder scams, focusing on an empowered senior who refuses to back down.

Hearne had some help bringing Granny to life on screen. She is actually inspired by his own no-nonsense Irish grandmother.

“She was tough as nails, but I don’t want to hit this too hard, because I do want to visit the family in Ireland and not come away with a bloody nose,” Hearne jokes in an interview from his Mile End home. “It’s really her character and some of the details from her life, like the huge ashes from her cigarettes and drinking vodka from yogurt cups. She was someone who just didn’t feel any fear. She was also called The G by her family. She would leave notes signed “The G,” and so people started calling those notes G-mail.”

But Hearne stresses the film is a work of fiction.

“I like to think of this film as a revenge story against old age itself — old age being a condition that my grandmother once said she would not tolerate.”

The G was shot in and around Montreal with a predominantly local cast, including Québécois stars Romane Denis and Roc Lafortune in principal roles along with U.S. film and theatre vet Dickey (Breaking Bad, True Blood, Iron Man 3).

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Like Hearne’s debut feature, the psycho-thriller Touched, The G is essentially a no-budget film, made for just over $1 million, although that doesn’t show on screen. The G’s production values are as sharp as those of films with budgets many, many times more than Hearne’s.

“We didn’t even have enough money to finish the film. I had to go into personal debt to finish. Then we had just enough to get it into the can,” says Hearne.

No matter — the film has resonated with audiences. It has already been released in the U.K., Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, plus Australia and New Zealand, the Middle East and South America. And a U.S. theatrical distribution deal was just announced, while one for streaming will be shortly.

Hearne is making his mark in the film world. He’s also making up for some lost time. He began shooting Touched nine years ago when he was 39. It was released in 2018.

The Montrealer, who holds a political science degree from McGill and a postgraduate degree from China’s Nanjing University, had been touted as an up-and-coming director two decades back. Hearne, who had also spent a year in Concordia’s film program, directed several shorts, which were acclaimed at dozens of festivals and sold around the world.

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But for reasons that still baffle him, he left film to help a friend start a clothing business. What he thought would last only a few months turned out to be six years. Then he had to prove himself all over again in the film biz.

The operation was a success. He somehow raised the funds — “with a budget the size of a luxury trailer” — for Touched. It would go on to play over 15 festivals around the world, taking two prizes for best feature — including one in Chicago, where it was one of 500 films entered.

Hearne is now in touch with producers here and in L.A. for a couple of projects.

“It’s going really well now, but this is a tough market and you never know what to expect, especially when you’re trying to raise millions of dollars.”

One project could hopefully include a collaboration with badass granny Dickey.

“Maybe even a prequel/sequel to The G, to see where she comes from and where she’s going. She has certainly made a case here for fighting back against a world where the elderly are so frequently marginalized, neglected or abused.”

AT A GLANCE

The G begins a weeklong run Saturday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. at the Cineplex Forum, 2313 Ste-Catherine St. W. Following the first screening, there will be a Q&A with director Karl R. Hearne moderated by Fantasia International Film Festival artistic director Mitch Davis.

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

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