Dir. Pat Mills
Starring: Pat Mills, Zahra Bentham,
Laytrel McMullen, Alex Ozerov, Kevin Hanchard, Tracey Hoyt
Review Excerpt By Greg Klymkiw
David Gold (Pat Mills) is a loser. He's a former child star reduced to taking non-union voice gigs, the latest of which he gets fired from because of his haughty, petulant, pretentious attitude. This is bad news because he's way behind on his share of the rent and on the verge of being turfed. He's got serious drug and alcohol problems and he's so deeply in the closet he won't even admit to himself that he's gay. Oh yeah, he's been diagnosed with late-stage skin cancer. None of this phases our hero. For us, the audience, it's one hell of a good deal because Guidance (the feature debut of writer, director and star Pat Mills) is all about David's hilarious decision to bamboozle his way into a job he's not qualified for, but thinks will be perfect for him. Cribbing from a child psychologist YouTube guru, David lands a cushy dream job that will not only pay well, but give him a chance to help teenagers which, for utterly insane reasons, he believes he'll be good at. He becomes the new Guidance Counsellor of Grusin High.
READ THE FULL REVIEW of Guidance from TIFF 2014 HERE
THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars
Guidance is playing theatrically from August 14, 2015 at TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX via Search Engine Films. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE. It also launches in the USA via Strand Releasing, August 21 (Village East) and LA on August 28 (Sundance Sunset Cinema), followed by a national release.