Two Lovers and A Bear - Interview with Tatiana Maslany and Dane Dehaan
/Montreal-born director Kim Nguyen's first fiction film following his Academy Award–nominated Rebelle is a hypnotic romance about two star-crossed lovers who find that the icy expanses of the Arctic offer little refuge from their pasts.
Lucy (Tatiana Maslany -recent Emmy Award winner for her work on Orphan Black) and Roman (Dane DeHaan) are deeply and claustrophobically in love, having limited interaction with the few other people (including Lucy's family) who live in their remote town of Apex in Nunavut. But when Lucy is offered a scholarship to continue her studies, it plunges Roman — whose psychological equilibrium is tentative at the best of times — into a deep depression. He shuts Lucy out (literally), but finally accedes to her pleas that they spend time together before her imminent departure. Reunited, the couple sets out on one last voyage through the uncharted Arctic wilderness, where it soon becomes clear that Lucy has equally debilitating (and perhaps even more dire) demons of her own.
As Lucy and Roman venture into the wild where the harsh conditions they encounter prey on their relationship with themselves and the rest of the world - the question becomes not how they will survive but how will they escape their troubled pasts.
I spoke with stars Tatiana Maslany, Dane Dehaan and writer director Kim Nguyen at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival where the film had it's North American Premiere.