When Link (Phillip Lewitski) discovers that his father (Joel Thomas Hynes) had been hiding letters to him from his mother (Savonna Spracklin) who Link was led to believe was dead, Link flees from the abusive household with his younger brother, Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony), to find their mom.  On their journey, they are picked up by Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), a young Mi’kmaw on his way to dance at a pow-wow.  Discovering their shared Mi’kmaw heritage, Pasmay decides to help the brothers seek out their mother.  The journey awakens something in Pasmay and Link, and the two boys begin to find more than just an understanding of each other, but a relationship begins to blossom between them.   

Wildhood was written and directed by Bretten Hannam and was distributed by Wolfe after a successful festival run earning seven of its eleven nominations.  It is a great example of the benefits of the accessibility of digital technology as this incredibly filtered-down story may not have found its outlet if it had to scrounge for studio money.  The need to tell this story on behalf of Hannam was felt by the cast who bring a great sense of care and understanding to their characters to create an engaging and emotive film that can easily speak to those outside of the demographic. 

The film follows Link, a rebellious teen with an incredible sense of loyalty to his younger brother.  Sporting a white cutoff and bleach-blond hair, the youth has mostly rejected his indigenous heritage due to his abusive father lashing out after his mother left him. Lewitski shows great vulnerability in the role showing off a hard enough edge that he needs to get by, but underneath is the heart of gold and a boy just crying out for his mother. For love.  

Because of this calloused exterior, he is very wary of Pasmay when they first meet. Pasmay, notably, has fully embraced his heritage and, like Link, also became estranged from his mother. The circumstances are quite different, though, as Pasmay was exiled from his home and his family when he came out to them. There are a few fleeting comments that seem to indicate that Link’s sexuality is known by his father, and while he was not kicked out of the house for it, it certainly does not seem like he has a thriving home life. The mirrored dynamic between Lewitski’s Link and an equally affecting performance by Odjick is the central relationship that inspires and drives the narrative forward. While it is lacking some necessary development on the page – or, possibly, the dynamic between the two just leaves us wanting for more – the blossoming friendship is a highlight of the film as we see Link slowly begin to adopt Mi’kmaw words into his vocabulary and take his first tentative steps in a dance led by Pasmay, while Pasmay begins to see a world of acceptance that until now was largely unknown to him. Their relationship all comes to a head when they share a night of intimacy by a waterfall in an incredibly tender and cathartic sequence. Guy Godfree’s camera is not afraid to capture these formative moments between the boys as it strives to find a balance between showing these boys at their most free – their most wild – while still being incredibly respectful of them. The moonlight on their skin and the extreme closeup shots that keep almost everything in a soft focus is evocative enough that, while the beginning of their relationship is still arguably underdeveloped, Wildhood lands the climax between the two with thundering success. 

What holds Wildhood back is that the film seems to have a bit of its own identity crisis. At only 99 minutes in length, Hannam has a lot of story to cover and the search for Sarah is the other main engine behind the plot. The trio finds their way to a facility being run by Elsapet (Becky Julian) for struggling or endangered Mi’kmaw youth, and with it, the film takes on an incredibly warm sense of home, acceptance, and belonging. There is a feeling of solidarity here that while no one in the group of eight or so people has identical stories, there is enough common ground between them all that can be shared and felt by the simple act of making a meal together; a beautiful sequence that ushers in the emotional themes of family that occupy the third act. The feeling is conveyed to us as the audience, but because so much goes unsaid in Wildhood the intricacies between Link and his relationship with Pasmay as well as his heritage are left, largely, unexplored. That openness ends up hurting the film as it feels like it is constantly at war with itself if it wants to be a queer coming-of-age story or a family-based one. These arcs are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and again, Hannam sticks the landing for both, but the middle act of those stories would have benefited from a much clearer and stronger voice instead of the aimlessness which much of the second act adopts. 

Wildhood is the feature-length version of Hannam’s Wildfire (2019) and the writer/director’s first foray into feature filmmaking after a career made in television and shorts. This effort serves as a strong entry into marginalized cinema that comes from a very personal place. Hannam has a clear understanding of how to create and leave an impact on his audience, hopefully, as he continues to grow as a filmmaker he can find confidence in expanding the second acts of his stories so that he may more fully realize his characters. The story beats are all there as the trio embarks on their odyssey through the wilds of Northeastern Canada, but the characters at times feel more like their actions are being dictated by the plot rather than holding influence over the course of the narrative. The moments of rest where they joke or argue, and the shared glances between Link and Pasmay are some of the most thrilling moments in the film, there just needs to be more of them.