New Waterford Girl (1999)

A gifted teenager dreaming of life beyond her small town becomes inspired when a 15-year-old girl from New York moves in next door.

Director:

Allan Moyle

Writer:

Tricia Fish (screenplay)

Stars:

Liane Balaban, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Mary Walsh

4 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Liane Balaban	...	Mooney Pottie
Tara Spencer-Nairn	...	Lou Benzoa
Mary Walsh	...	Cookie Pottie
Nicholas Campbell	...	Frances Pottie
Cathy Moriarty	...	Midge Benzoa
Andrew McCarthy	...	Cecil Sweeney
Darren Keay	...	Lexter Pottie (as Darren Kaey)
Kevin Curran	...	Joey
Krista MacDonald	...	Betty-Anne Pottie
Cassie MacDonald	...	Darlene Pottie
Adrien Dixon	...	Felix Pottie
Patrick Joyce	...	Darcy Benzoa
Lorne Pardy	...	Father Madden
Mark McKinney	...	Doctor Hogan
Susan Quinn	...	Sandra (as Susan Laney Dalton)

Storyline

Sometime in the 1970s, 15-year-old loner Agnes Marie "Mooney" Pottie dreams of escaping existence in New Waterford, a coastal Nova Scotia town on Cape Breton Island. She quietly scorns most of the people around her, including her large family, who don't share her sensibilities; her fiercely-Catholic family think she's weird. She thinks she's realized her dream when, with the help of her teacher Cecil Sweeney (who came to New Waterford to find himself and is still looking) she wins a scholarship to a New York art school. When her parents don't let her go, she devises a plan to escape New Waterford. Meanwhile, a bit of NYC comes to New Waterford when Lou Benzoa and her dance-instructor mother temporarily move in next door to the Potties to escape the Bronx until "the stink dies down." Lou becomes friends with Mooney and quickly gains a reputation as the female Equalizer, whose powers only work on the guilty.

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Plot Keywords:

religious parent | vomiting | new york | catholic | teacher | 

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Taglines:

Get Pregnant Now. Lose Virginity Later.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 January 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dziewczyna z New Waterford

Filming Locations:

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Box Office

Gross USA:

$774,469

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$774,469

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sienna Films, imX Communications

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

When writer Tricia Fish moved to New Waterford at age 13 with her family, her six-year-old brother ran into their kitchen one day all bloody, and happily said, "I made a friend!" She incorporated this into the movie, in an identical scene with the character of Darcy, Lou's little brother.

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Goofs

On the DVD edition that has subtitles, the subtitles get some lyrics wrong in the opening credits song. When the singer sings the words "Draggin' the line", the subtitles read "Livin' a lie". It's especially a strange goof since "Draggin' the Line" is actually the name of the song.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Moonie Pottie: I wasn't really born here, you know. When I was a tiny infant, my real mother, a famous opera singer, dropped me from a silver jet as she passed over what she saw as a beautiful tropical coastline. God's country.

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Connections

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

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Soundtracks

Cecil Sweeney (Shady Whistle)
composed by Geoff Bennett, Longo Hai and Ben Johannesen
New Waterford Girl Extra Background Music Tracks

User Reviews

interesting story in a beautiful place

This movie inspired my trip to Cape Breton Island last year, because the scenery is so beautiful. I went to New Waterford and, suffice it to say, it is an even stranger town than the movie would make it appear. The movie was cute and melancholy, and Balban was pretty brilliant in the starring role. And movie with girls boxing ranks pretty high with me anyway.