EIFF Review: Whole New Thing

Posted by: Scott Hayes  •  October 4, 2005 @ 11:59am

Filed under: Reviews

From the CanCon "Weird Sex" file comes this exploration of sexual awakening as experienced by characters of different ages, genders, and orientations. With a 13-year-old boy as the lead, Thing starts with a family of environmentalists enjoying a nice nude sauna together. They live in a hay hut shack in the rural area outside of some nondescript Maritimes town. The dad is an intellectual eco-warrior trying to discover a method to turn human excrement into a viable energy source. The wife just kind of goes along with everything because she craves his attention. And the son, Emerson (Webber), is home-schooled to excellent effect, has written a pretty thick book, and is just hitting his full stride of puberty as his parents decide to throw a curveball by having him go to an actual school.

Emerson, the mother, and the teacher go through their own melancholy transitional periods associated with their sexual stage of life. Things get messy when Emerson develops a bit of a crush on his new teacher. In this world though, even sheltered, confused teenagers still know more than their elders.