Sleeping Giant follows in the well known path of edgy Canadian Indy films. Set near Thunder Bay, Ontario in a lakeside holiday area on Lake Superior, the movie revolves around three 15 year old boys Adam (Martin Jackson), Nate (Nick Serino) and Riley (Reece Moffitt) who hang out together for the summer. Nate and Riley are cousins and live in the area whereas Adam comes from the city and stays with his parents. The cousins are pretty rebellious and rough around the edges whereas Adam seems more innocent and less experienced in the wiles of the adolescent world.
The movie is an incredibly realistic portrayal of the sometimes nihilistic lifestyle bored, unstructured and unsupervised mid-teens can live as Nate and Riley draw Adam into their world of smoking, drinking, pot smoking, sex (at least talking about it), theft, fighting, destruction of property and dangerous risk taking behavior, in this case, cliff jumping. Riley sees Adam's dad William (David Disher) have an illicit sexual encounter with a younger lady who works in the local fish shop. Adam plays a lot with a same aged childhood friend Taylor (Katlin McKerracher) who he has grown up with but who seems to be a bit of a flirt with boys and pretty soon Riley makes a move on her. William confronts Adam over his more withdrawn behavior only to have Adam shoot back over his father's affair and this leads to his Dad covering for Adam after the boys steal liquor from a local gas station and are caught on camera. Adam must also cope with the fact that two of his friends may now be in a relationship, so he gets thrust into the middle of an adolescent love triangle even though he professes only plutonic friendship for Taylor. Some may infer that he harbors an attraction to Riley.
The plot comes to a head when the boys take up a dare from a local pot dealer deadhead who, in his teens 15 years earlier, jumped a 110 foot cliff on a deserted island out in the lake and the two more daredevil boys goad each other into replicating this feat only to find that Nate ruptures internal organs soon after his seeming successful jump and dies thus bringing the summer of fun crashing to an end.
The movie has stunning scenery, and the three lead boys are refreshingly real and very authentic. It is always preferable when directors cast teenage actors of an age at or close to the age of their characters. In this case Serino and Moffitt actually are from the area and their on-screen grandmother is a real life aunt to one of the boys. Director Andrew Cividino apparently gave all the boys considerable license to adlib key scenes and this adds to the realism of their antics. Martin Jackson gives a particularly strong and nuanced performance and all in all, this is a cut above your typical teen boy coming-of-age drama.
The movie is an incredibly realistic portrayal of the sometimes nihilistic lifestyle bored, unstructured and unsupervised mid-teens can live as Nate and Riley draw Adam into their world of smoking, drinking, pot smoking, sex (at least talking about it), theft, fighting, destruction of property and dangerous risk taking behavior, in this case, cliff jumping. Riley sees Adam's dad William (David Disher) have an illicit sexual encounter with a younger lady who works in the local fish shop. Adam plays a lot with a same aged childhood friend Taylor (Katlin McKerracher) who he has grown up with but who seems to be a bit of a flirt with boys and pretty soon Riley makes a move on her. William confronts Adam over his more withdrawn behavior only to have Adam shoot back over his father's affair and this leads to his Dad covering for Adam after the boys steal liquor from a local gas station and are caught on camera. Adam must also cope with the fact that two of his friends may now be in a relationship, so he gets thrust into the middle of an adolescent love triangle even though he professes only plutonic friendship for Taylor. Some may infer that he harbors an attraction to Riley.
The plot comes to a head when the boys take up a dare from a local pot dealer deadhead who, in his teens 15 years earlier, jumped a 110 foot cliff on a deserted island out in the lake and the two more daredevil boys goad each other into replicating this feat only to find that Nate ruptures internal organs soon after his seeming successful jump and dies thus bringing the summer of fun crashing to an end.
The movie has stunning scenery, and the three lead boys are refreshingly real and very authentic. It is always preferable when directors cast teenage actors of an age at or close to the age of their characters. In this case Serino and Moffitt actually are from the area and their on-screen grandmother is a real life aunt to one of the boys. Director Andrew Cividino apparently gave all the boys considerable license to adlib key scenes and this adds to the realism of their antics. Martin Jackson gives a particularly strong and nuanced performance and all in all, this is a cut above your typical teen boy coming-of-age drama.