Guidance (film)

Guidance is a Canadian dark comedy film, which premiered at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival on September 5, 2014 as part of the Discovery program.^[1]

The full-length directorial debut of Pat Mills, the film stars Mills as David Gold, a down on his luck former child star who fabricates his credentials to take a job as a high school guidance counsellor.^[2] An unrecovered alcoholic and drug addict troubled by his faded success and in deep denial about both his closeted gay sexuality and his health following a skin cancer diagnosis, he becomes unexpectedly popular with the students after his habit of introducing them to his own deeply unhealthy coping mechanisms actually helps many of them solve their own problems.^[2]

The film's cast also includes Kevin Hanchard, Alex Ozerov, Jen Goodhue, Maria Vacratsis, Eleanor Zichy and Allison Hossack.^[3]

The film has been picked up by Strand Releasing for distribution in the United States.^[4]

Background

Mills is himself a former child actor, who appeared on the television series You Can't Do That on Television in the 1980s.^[5] Having not taken an acting role since 1994, he had to pay almost ten years worth of back ACTRA dues in order to act in his own film.^[5]

He drew inspiration both from the troubled history of many child actors who have had trouble adjusting to adult life outside of the media spotlight, and from a desire to subvert the conventions of the stereotypical coming out narrative by depicting a character whose process of coming to terms with his sexuality was neither smooth nor romantic.^[6] He describes David Gold as an "alter ego", who faces some of the same insecurities that Mills had dealt with in his own life, but has much more dysfunctional ways of coping with them.^[6]

References

External links

• Guidance at the Internet Movie Database