Kabluey (2007) will be dismissed as “quirky,” or, more subtly, as a “first film.” So I invite you to perform a thought experiment: Select your favourite director and image he or she made this film. Ready . . .?
Probably no other director besides [my fav director] could have so successfully combined comedy, drama, and social commentary. When we first meet 32-year old Salmon (Scott Pendergast), he appears to be someone we can easily pigeon hole as a “slacker” or a “loser.” When he gets a job in a print shop, he is so eager to do a great job that he works all night laminating everything, including everything he shouldn’t. If we are worthy of the subtleties of this film, we note that he was over-motivated and we start asking, What could make an adult male like this? We get a partial answer when he goes to help his sister-in-law with her two hellion boys when her husband’s stay in Iraq is prolonged. He gets a job as a large blue mascot for a dotcom corporation going down the tubes, and he stands by the side of the road handing out pink flyers for cheap office space. The other characters swirling around his humiliation are not just padding, not just there for a giggle, but flesh out what life is like at the lower echelons of corporate America. Screenwriter [ok, insert the name of your favourite screenwriter] is far too sophisticated to show us bosses mistreating underlings. Rather Salmon is not even granted the decency of an interview, and while he is being hired by an angry, chain-smoking woman who is relegated to the basement, she carries on a shouting match with a rival worker. Out on the road, four guys picking up litter come across Kabluey handing out leaflets. Instead of solidarity, they toss a can of Budweiser to him, knowing that in his costume he cannot open and drink the beer, which is what he’d most like to do on a hot summer’s day.
Similarly, when we first meet his sister-in-law Leslie (Lisa Kudrow), she appears to be devoted wife and mother having difficulty handling the kids while her husband is in Iraq. But if we are worthy of the subtleties of the film, we realize there is something else going on. For one thing, she makes no serious effort to control the two young hellions. For another, while she has a huge military portrait of her husband front and center, she is having an affair with the slimy boss at work. In the short scene with her and her boss sipping wine and making out in the near-empty corporate headquarters, she glows. We ask, What could make a devoted wife and mother do this? Every time the family eats supper, Iraq is on the screen.
Salmon changes, entirely believable, limited, and good for those around him. As he stands roadside for minimum wage and faces the prospect of going home to two boys who have poured Comet cleanser in his mouth and put tacks in his breakfast cereal, a rich neighbour stops and offers Kabluey $100 to show up at her kid’s birthday party. As the kids swarm lovable Kabluey, he spots the two little hellions standing at the gate to the mansion. What does he do? He picks up the boys, one under each arm, and gives them a hug and a playful ride. The boys don’t know it’s him and they love Kabluey. When they accidentally see Salmon getting out of the costume, their attitude does not change in the way you’d expect. That night in bed the boys are whispering and then ask him, “Can you fly?” He says, no, he is simply one of the good guys, there to protect them and their mother. These scenes are the moral fulcrum of the movie.
Leslie changes. When Salmon shows her that her lover is seducing yet another secretary, Leslie at first slaps him, but it is a turning point for her. She begins to discipline the boys. She talks to Salmon as if he were a real person, and once she even says thanks to him.
At the climax of the movie, warrior-husband-father-brother walks in the front door. Long hug with wife. Salmon urges the wary kids forward—long hug with kids. Will no one notice Salmon sitting in the background? By now you should have realized the quality of this movie and you’ll be thinking all kinds of creative endings. How about this? Salmon disappears and reappears driving down the highway in an old blue Volkswagen Beetle with his suitcase in the back and a slight smile on his face.