I’ve been to the Oxford Theatre in Halifax.
It serves as the setting for this issue. I went with friends to see Last Night (a great and underrated Canadian film starring Sandra Oh, David Cronenberg, Don McKellar and Sarah Polley – check it out if you can find it) years ago, and I was impressed with the grand, old, traditional movie-house feel of the place. I came away from this second visit to the Oxford feeling impressed as well, but it’s Brian Wood’s writing and Ryan Kelly’s subtly expressive artwork that had an impact. Of course, after reading previous issues of this remarkably powerful series, it came as no surprise.
Megan McKeenan is running away from her life, and now, she’s trying to find a way to run away from herself. Landing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and taking a job at a local movie theatre, she passes herself off to the customers as a different person every night – sometimes adopting a new name and identity more than once a night. It’s an ingenious little game she plays, but when one guy she befriended returns and realizes she’s claiming to be someone else, the fun comes to an end.
This isn’t something most readers are going to know, but trust me on this: Kelly absolutely nails the setting. And I don’t just mean the Oxford. He captures the dark, quiet quality of Halifax Harbour at night and the overall tone of the city quite well. It’s safe to say he’s been doing justice to all of the real-world settings throughout this series. What’s more impressive, though, is how he brings these characters emotions and subtle changes in their moods to life through their faces. The dynamics between Megan and the other characters aren’t exactly explosive, and I would image it’s the quieter, less exaggerated expressions that are more challenging to convey. Kelly meets the challenge with seeming ease.
How much attention to you pay to people you encounter casually over the course of a day? A girl behind the coffee counter, the cop writing you a ticket, the kid who asks you for directions... they’re faceless, even if one converses with them for a few minutes. It’s through repetition that we get to know people, and Wood strikes upon an interesting that to be told one’s memory of such a fleeting encounter is wrong, one accepts it all too easily. I found it incredibly easy to buy into the premise behind this story, and I found it to be brilliant in its simplicity.
Wood has crafted an interesting psychological trick for his protagonist to play on herself and others. By adopting a false identity and history, Megan transforms herself into a non-entity, but in the process of spreading her lie to another, she has to ignore the emotions of the object of her deception. In other words, she’s dehumanizing herself and others. When she’s confronted with the lies and forced to see someone as a real person, she’s forced to see herself that way as well. And when she sees herself as human, she feels the emotions she’s trying to suppress. She realizes that there are joys she’s denying herself, but she’s not willing to risk it to feel any pain. 10/10
