Joshua Jackson Hits The Road In One Week

One Week is unapologetically Canadian. And that’s a good thing.

Michael McGowan’s film about a man who embarks on a week-long motorcycle trip from Toronto, Ontario to Tofino, B.C. after receiving life-altering news references everything from Tim Hortons to the Stanley Cup.

“This is a universal story. Why not set it in our country? Why not celebrate who we are?” McGowan muses in a recent interview with CityNews.ca.

“That ‘I Am Canadian’ ad a few years ago really touched a patriotic nerve. (Our) junior hockey (team) touches a patriotic nerve. Why not do that in cinema? And not in a way that says, ‘Let’s just put a Canadian flag there to remind us.’ If you can use a Tim Hortons coffee cup as a plot device, it’s going to mean something to people in this country. And if you’re not from this country it’ll still work as a story point.”

Joshua Jackson stars as Ben Tyler, who in the first five minutes of the film is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rather than sink into despair, he hits the road in search of himself and the meaning of his life. And Jackson points out that the journey, set to songs by Sam Roberts, Wintersleep, and Joel Plaskett, among others, is anything but depressing.

“That piece of information he gets, that death sentence he’s given, is really only a catalyst to start living his life,” the actor explains. “It’s not a cancer movie, it doesn’t deal with the ravages of cancer. It is about this one week period afterward where all the experts say you’d just go into denial anyway – we’re taking a metaphorical approach and that’s what this road trip represents.”

McGowan, who previously helmed Saint Ralph, wrote and directed One Week, which asks the question what would you do if you knew your days were numbered?

“To me, as a writer, the argument is, ‘Should I get treatment?’ I’m not saying I would do what Ben was doing but at least it’s worth an exploration,” McGowan says. “He didn’t set out to say, ‘I’m not getting treatment.’ He backed out of his life.  The further away he got, the more he was not confronting things – until he was forced to. That to me was what the film was about – the more distance he got, the more things came into focus about who he was.”

Jackson’s co-star in the film, aside from Liane Balaban who provides a strong supporting turn as Ben’s fiancée Samantha, is undoubtedly Canada itself – its characters, its kitsch, and its grandeur.

“I hope Canadians will want to see it because we love our own country, but I think other people will want to see it because the themes are universal,” Jackson remarks. “The specifics of Canada and the beauty of our country are, surprise surprise, interesting to people other than just us. Because it’s a road movie, you get to see a lot of the different beauties of our country. You start in Ontario, you go through the Prairies, which I’d never been to and which are incredibly beautiful. Then you get into the mountains and you’re into my part of the world. This is a gorgeous country. People think of the road movie as an essentially American thing, but there’s something Canadian about getting out into the country. We’re an outdoorsy people.”

The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, was shot over several weeks on a tight budget, and McGowan admits that was both challenging and liberating.

“It’s a big location to scout, so we didn’t,” he reveals. “There’s a lot of serendipity about just driving across the country and hoping things would work. There was always the constant pressure of, ‘This didn’t work’, or this location fell through, or the weather’s not cooperating. We had to have the ability to improvise.  The bus broke down outside Thunder Bay and we were (saying), ‘Okay, we’re going to ask the people that own the diner right there if we can shoot a scene there because we’ve got a couple of hours to kill.’ They said yes and we did.”

Jackson, who hails from Vancouver, admits that aside from the acting challenges inherent in the film he couldn’t resist the offer of riding a bike across the country and calling it work. Not to mention sharing scenes with the Stanley Cup, singer Emm Gryner and the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie.

“I smoked a spliff with Gord Downie, it was excellent. I mean, a fake one, because it was a film. Talk about Canadian-ness,” he smiles.

“This movie is so happily Canadian. The country is there as a backdrop from beginning to end. It is visually the metaphor for what (Ben is) going through, and we present it as such, from all of its kitsch glory to the awe-inspiring scope and scale of our country that is, unless you’ve been out in it, impossible to understand. And it’s okay for us to be proud of that.”

One Week opens in theatres across the country on Friday.

Michael McGowan will participate in a Q & A following the 7:30pm shows on Friday, March 6, and Saturday, March 7 at Varsity Cinemas, 55 Bloor Street West.

Top image: Joshua Jackson in a scene from One Week

Middle image: Writer-director Michael McGowan during filming

Lower image: Joshua Jackson and Gord Downie

NOTE: Due to a technical problem with our camera during the interview the footage of Joshua Jackson and Michael McGowan has a green hue to it. Thank you for your understanding.