8:37 Rebirth
A tale of two performances, one sublime, one scenery-chewing, in this well-meaning but misdirected drama about revenge and regret.
“8:37 Rebirth” is a tale of revenge and regret, as two men joined by a terrible tragedy decades ago find themselves unable to shrug off the burden it’s placed upon their psyches. Eventually, their paths will converge in an inevitable confrontation that will either purge them of their sins or lead to more despair and degradation.
What do you do when you have a film where all the weight lies upon the two leading performances, and they’re so unbalanced — one sublime, one so scenery-chewing and over-the-top it brings the whole enterprise down?
The setup is that Sergei (Pasha Ebrahimi) is a brilliant mathematician and Jared Peters (Glen Gould) is the man who killed his father in a convenience store robbery decades earlier. Sergei was just a kid and witnessed the whole thing, while Jared was barely more than a child himself, confused and hurt.
As the story opens in Nova Scotia, Jared is being released from prison after serving his full term. He could’ve gotten out years earlier on parole, but didn’t feel he was ready. He’s a quiet soul, a man who barely speaks even when spoken to, and all he seems to do is doodle in his sketchbook.
He gets a job as a taxi driver and a run-down apartment in a building where the super, Houseman (Daniel Lillford), can barely conceal his contempt for the ex-con. He’s constantly creeping around the place, demanding Jared keep to an absolute quiet, even though he makes barely a peep more than a church mouse.
As a victim of the crime, Sergei is informed of Jared’s imminent release from prison. He also has a reminder in the form of John (Mark A. Owen), a police detective who trains him in boxing and also sees himself as something of a tough love tutor. It seems clear that Sergei has had broken periods in his life brought about by the childhood trauma.
Initially he seems to be in a good place, married to a devoted wife, Nora (Amy Trefry), and they have a kid about the same age he was when he had his fall. He even portrays himself as a science-y superhero, Math Man, jotting equations on the walls and giving his kid friendly quizzes.
Seemingly very different, Sergei and Jared share a lot of similar qualities. They’re solitary men who throw themselves into their passions, math and painting respectively, and have trouble relating to others. Both have brushes with rage in their past, though Jared’s seem long behind him while Sergei’s threaten to bubble over and burst in the present
Gould is terrific as Jared, giving him a sort of still, mournful grace. He doesn’t shy away from his guilt but has spent most of his life confronting it, and is now ready to put it behind him and move on. But it’s hard when John is showing up on his doorstep dispensing threats, and Houseman is a similarly hostile presence.
I wish I could say the same for Ebrahimi’s performance. It’s based on a lot of brooding moods and 1,000-yard stares. When the two men finally have their initial confrontation — one that occurs through happenstance rather than one seeking the other out — Sergei goes into a wild, literally spit-flecked rage, seemingly transforming into a feral beast before our eyes.
The result is we feel a great deal of empathy for Jared, despite his terrible crime, while Sergei remains something of a puzzling mystery to us. He quickly alienates his wife and son, who flee from his mad moods, which only accelerates the spiral of his descent.
We all know where it’s going to end up.
Director Juanita Peters and screenwriters Joseph LeClair and Hank White have a few good pieces for a solid movie, but mix up the ingredients so one flavor is too heavy while others are too light to have an impact.
The filmmakers keep bring up unnecessary scenes poking into John the cop’s life, his estrangement from his wife and resentfulness that she’s moved on. It almost feels like the movie wants to break itself into three pieces and follow each man on his journey, but Jared’s is the only one that holds our interest.
It would be really interesting to tell this story entirely from Jared’s perspective, and Sergei and John are just characters from his past who turn up to confound and complicate his journey.
Instead, we get a triad of stories where only one leg truly supports its character. Between the overacting and the wonky storytelling, “8:37 Rebirth” remains a collection of promising pieces.