Waydowntown (2000)

Director:

Gary Burns

Writers:

Gary Burns (writer)
James Martin (writer)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A group of young employees bet a month's salary, winner takes all, on who can last the longest without going outside.

Plot Keywords:

Office | Garage | Office Worker | Building | Digital Film

Awards:

5 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Fab Filippo	...	Tom Bennett (as Fabrizio Filippo)
Don McKellar	...	Brad
Marya Delver	...	Sandra West
Gordon Currie	...	Curt Schwin
Tammy Isbell	...	Kathy
Tobias Godson	...	Randy
Jennifer Clement	...	Vicki Strayhorn
James McBurney	...	Phil
Derek Flores	...	Paul
Xantha Radley	...	June
Dan Willmott	...	Julian
Judith Buchan	...	Mrs. Drysdale
Michelle Beaudoin	...	Anise
Harris Hart	...	Mr. Mather
Nick Cleary	...	James

MPAA:

Rated R for language, drug use and some sexuality.

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Australia:M | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Company:

Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Trivia:

The Radio Station CJAY 92 that plays "Start A Rumor Day" throughout the film is a real rock station in Calgary, and those are the stations actual DJs talking, and the phone number that is mentioned (249-CJ92) is the station's phone number.

Goofs:

Continuity: In an early scene, Tom and Ralph mention that they are on day 24 of their bet. When Tom gets to his desk, the next "cross off" on his calendar marks day 27.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Devil Doll

Calgary's Caves of Steel and Glass

What a wonderful little movie! Almost every office worker can relate to the atmosphere of staleness in an office tower. Interesting make-up job they used... dark on greenish pale faces made everyone look like walking dead zombies, which from a little office work experience, is not to far from real life in some places. This movie kind of reminded me of Isaac Asimov's planet, Trantor, in the Foundation novels and his depiction of New York hundreds of years in the future in the Robot novels where Asimov refers to as living in "caves of steel." (Interestingly, Calgary's skyline has been described as one of "steel and glass")

However something somewhat disturbing is that much of North American society will grow more and more comfortable indeed with living and working indoors all the time. This may have been alluded to when one of the characters (I won't give it away), stepped outside for a refreshing breath of of air and finds the outside air instead very unpleasant to breath from the city's pollution. It's a scary thought in that if the way things they're going now with the environment continuing to deteriorate, many of us may have to find refuge waydowntown ourselves.

Oh, I watched this movie the day before I started my first fulltime job in an office setting. I just graduated from university with a commerce degree. Man, how depressing since the character, Tom, is also a commerce grad with his first job. I think it'd be really funny if they showed this movie to all commerce students. Maybe then they wouldn't worship corporations as much as they do now.

Alas, (to quote a local weekly) Waydowntown has been the best argument I've seen to date AGAINST moving to Calgary!