REEL | Ben Foster and Cobie Smulders Turn A 'Sharp Corner' x WFF 2024

"I thought this was our dream house."

Whistler Film Festival

Set and shot in Nova Scotia, Sharp Corner, Halifax-based writer/director Jason Buxton's second feature film, is based on the short story of the same name by Winnipeg journalist Russell Wangersky and follows a family in crisis after their move to the suburbs for a gripping existential midlife thriller.

Titled after a curved road near a couple's new home they share with their young son, Ben Foster and Cobie Smulders star as an emasculated husband and father with a hero complex who becomes increasingly obsessed with saving car accident victims from the hazardous turn and his worried but loving, more rational wife. There's a strong atmospheric tone to Buxton's riveting film of small character moments bursting with tension. Foster is eerily engaging as a helplessly frustrated man dealing with everyday life's struggles.

It's a thoroughly captivating domestic drama that makes its primary setting and location along a dangerous road so compelling. Foster's slowly unhinged yet mannered performance grounds the otherwise small-scale stakes of trying to protect your family from unpredictable accidents but feeling powerless to do so. Sharp Corner's quiet descent into madness escalates expertly through bursts.

Sharp Corner screened at the 2024 Whistler Film Festival as part of the Canadian Made program with Smulders being honoured on-stage as a distinguished artist for its Signature Series.


More | YVArcade / Indiewire / That Shelf