There’s Always Hope Review | Hope for Better

Making movies is hard, and I hope that the fittingly titled indie family drama There’s Always Hope was a passion project brought to life simply through the spirit of filmmaking and a specific desire to tell this story. I express that sentiment because There’s Always Hope is a very, very bad movie, one that probably shouldn’t be released theatrically, but can’t be treated in the same way as a work that’s a blockbusting waste of cash and resources or is somehow offensive on some level. It’s the type of movie that one expects to come with accolades and accolades on the poster from the likes of niche mid-market film festivals in places that are home to wealthy, less than discerning populations who are just tickled pink to see something before the rest of the world. (The Filmmaking Spirit Award from The Nantucket Beach Nights Festival, Opening Night Film of The Richmond Port Authority Film Festival, Best Set Design at The Newport Beach International Festival of Cinema. None of those are real things, but that’s the idea.) 

I’m trying very hard not to be flippant because I know first hand how hard it can be to get a film off the ground (and have been involved with my share of stinkers), but having sat through enough movies that seem to have been made simply because it afforded those making it with the chance to hang out at a villa in a nice location, I can safely say they are almost always passion projects and most of them are unwatchable for all but a small sliver of the human population that rarely expands beyond like minded individuals and friends and family of the filmmakers. And they usually have some degree of money behind them, regardless of the probably low budget. There’s Always Hope is a film that had to be made with some degree of passion and adventurous creative spirit in mind because there’s no reason to make it otherwise.

University student Hope (Hannah Chinn) has been having trouble getting in touch with her parents, Jonathan (Colm Meaney) and Samantha (Kate Ashfield). Mom isn’t returning any calls, and the personal assistant to her bestselling spy novelist father says he’s run off to the family villa in Portugal. Wanting answers, Hope drops everything to pay her father an unexpected visit. Although cagey at first, Jonathan eventually lets it slip that Samantha has been carrying on an affair with her business partner and his former editor, Luke (John Light). Once mom learns that Hope is currently spending time at the villa, Samantha knows that she has to come clean and face what she has done head on.

Writer-director Tim Lewiston (whose primary background lies in sound design/editing) gets the story into motion with admirable quickness, but There’s Always Hope is built around one of those stories where people refuse to say what’s on their mind, because if they did, there wouldn’t be a feature length movie. Told through a combination of lengthy sit downs between father and daughter that spell out the obvious and far too many scenes featuring performers talking to each other over the phone (always death for any film), there’s precious little urgency to the problems at hand. No one wants to have a tough conversation because that’s the point when the movie ends. It wouldn’t be cinematic, but a much richer film could probably be made just from cutting Hope and Samantha from the film and just watching Jonathan quietly reflecting and finding some peace in a sunny locale or interacting with random locals. Or maybe a film about people who aren’t wealthy people that can just drop everything and head someplace warm and sunny navigating the same problems.

To say that the champagne problems on display in There’s Always Hope are privileged ones would be to put things charitably. While infidelity is a real issue that tears families apart on a regular basis, there’s never a sense as to why this relationship deserves to be saved in the first place. The couple in question is obviously unhappy. The wife’s new suitor constantly acts like a needy, loathsome, controlling creep, but it’s hard to say that pivoting back to Jonathan would make her happier. And while the situation gives Hope a chance to examine and gain perspective on her own romantic relationships, she seems to hold both of her parents to some degree of personal contempt, so why bother dropping everything to sort it out in the first place? Absolutely nothing about the interpersonal dynamics at play There’s Always Hope feels organic or credible, which isn’t helped by the clunky dialogue.

Meaney and Ashfield are fine – even if neither of them is really digging deep for this – and Chinn proves to be quite the discovery, emerging as the most promising element of the entire film, and bringing with her a sense of energy that the rest of Lewiston’s film lacks. But the real star of There’s Always Hope is the villa and everything surrounding it. Lewiston makes sure he’s getting the most mileage possible out of his locations, whether on shore or on a nice boat out on the ocean, shooting everything from the widest angles possible in a bid to make sure everything is in frame. There are only a few actual locations throughout There’s Always Hope, but Lewiston is very keen to show them off to a point where they cease to seem like much of anything at all. It’s a picture built on opulence, but very little local colour or naturally occurring personality, like being forced to watch someone else’s vacation slides. (I use this reference because the age demographic this is aimed at is more likely to understand what I mean by that.) If the film ended with someone trying to sell me a timeshare, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Whether There’s Always Hope was a paid vacation masquerading as a film, a partnership with a board of tourism somewhere, or just a chance for someone to show off some nice things they had access to doesn’t matter because it still isn’t much of a movie by any metric. That’s why I hope this was a labour of love, and not something cynically tossed off simply for the sake of churning out more content for the mill. Despite the flatness of the narrative, I hope it was exactly the kind of story Lewiston wanted to tell. The movie doesn’t make me feel anything, and I can’t really understand why this is getting a somewhat wide Canadian theatrical release, but the idea that someone had the drive to follow through on it is easy for me to admire.

There’s Always Hope opens in Canadian theatres on Friday, March 3, 2023.