By Jorge Ignacio Castillo

Guitar Lessons (Dir: Aaron James. Canada, 2022): There’s something to be said about earnestness in film. In days in which movies are constantly winking at the audience (are you getting the reference? Get it? Get it?) and the leads are at the very least smart-alecky, simplicity and sense of purpose go a long way.

In Guitar Lessons, this earnestness goes a long way to cover the film’s shortcomings. The movie also benefits from a strong main cast, led by country-western singer/songwriter Corb Lund in his first starring role.

Lund is Ray, a man of few words and fewer friends trying to make a living as an oilfield contractor in northwestern Alberta. There’s more to him than that. Once upon a time he almost hit the big-time as a musician, but chose to walk away from it for murky reasons.

His standoffish approach to life makes him a terrible choice as a teacher, yet he’s approached by a 15-year-old, Leland (newcomer Kaden Noskiye), for the titular guitar lessons. The kid seems lost in most ways than one and there’s clearly more than chance to this encounter.

Guitar Lessons doesn’t necessarily goes where you think is going, but doesn’t stray that far either. One wishes the film spent more time in developing the relationship between Ray and Leland (most of it unfolds as a montage). Instead, the movie takes unnecessary tangents to explore Ray’s relationship with women and money.

The Guitar Lessons’ B-story is potent, but barely connected to the main plot (feels like two separate scripts forcefully combined to reach feature film length). It revolves around Ray’s best friend Ernie (Conway Kootenay), a good-natured Cree man struggling with gambling addiction. Director Aaron James (Hank Williams First Nation) smartly enables Kootenay to plays to his strengths and gives his comedic chops no less than three showcases (the land acknowledgement is particularly riotous), but also injects the characters with enough pathos to make him well rounded.

Overall, Guitar Lessons fails to come together, particularly on the more dramatic second half, but has enough single achievements to justify the ticket price. 2/5 stars.

Guitar Lessons is now playing in Saskatchewan and Alberta.