Growing Op [1] (Canada 2008) 95 min.
Directed by Michael Melski [2]
With Steven Yaffee, Wallace Langham, Rosanna Arquette, Katie Boland, et al.
Have you noticed how much the popular imagination is taken up with cannabis these days? It's been pretty much normalized, partly because the generation that popularized and inhaled it has grown up and is now making movies and programming television. Guess it's true what they always said: smoking marijuana does lead to bigger things. Growing Op is a charming, witty feature about a child of that boomer generation, an 18-year-old who longs for a life of straight parents and public schooling. Yeah, that's what rebellion looks like in these twisted times. Steven Yaffee stars in the role of Quinn (not the Eskimo [3] but inspired by one), a young man in search of weedlessness. Director Michael Melski cleverly sends up a slew of genres—the high school movie; the rebel movie; the dope comedy—turning them inside out for satiric pleasure. Don't Bogart your time—check this out.
Growing Op plays tonight, January 22, at 7pm at Empire Theatres, Avalon Mall, as part of the MUN Cinema Series Winter Program [4]. All films are open to the public. MUN Cinema sets up a table near the Empire Cinemas' box office about an hour before the screening where tickets and passes may be purchased. Admission is $10 / $9.