Over the course of 24 hours, the residents of the tiny island town of Wilby, Nova Scotia, Canada try to maintain business as usual in the face of very unusual business. A scandal threatens to tear the town apart. Details are scarce, but there are rumors about two central characters in the film. Gay video store owner Dan Jarvis (James Allodi) repeatedly attempts to take his own life, but is constantly interrupted by hunky gay Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), the town handyman who is attracted to Dan. The opening scene for the film shows Duck preventing Dan from suicide on a bridge. Real estate agent Carol French (Sandra Oh) prepares for the town festival while her relationship with her cop husband Buddy (Paul Gross) deteriorates. Mayor Brent Fisher (Maury Chaykin) wants to turn Wilby Watch, a gay cruising area, into a golf course. Wilby Watch is about to explode on Wilby when the local paper prepares to print the names of gays caught in an illicit same-sex rendezvous. Closeted Dan is on the list of names to be revealed, and he would rather do away with himself than deal with the shame.
This film doesn't explain exactly what happened, but instead drops hints along the way. “Islanders” are less tolerant then “mainlanders", two words heavily thrown about in the film. It's a funny dark comedy, filled with moments of gravity, with great acting and ensemble chemistry. The film succeeds by asking questions not only about the potential of small-town gay life, but about the difficulty of changing entrenched attitudes, values and behaviour in oneself and in others. Duck sums everything up by saying to Emily Anderson (Ellen Page) about her mother: "She wants to love and be loved, just like all of us". As if to acknowledge the concessions that must be made, this independent film ends not with a kiss but with a tentative embrace. Michael Timmins composed the original music, and Daniel MacIvor wrote the screenplay and directed.
