HOW HEAVY THIS HAMMER

Director Kazik Radwanski / 2015 / Canada

"An intimate film about at a bear-like man, father and husband, clumsily maneuvering his way through a midlife crisis." – Filmmaker

Middle-aged Erwin is firmly stuck in a rut of his own making. Disaffected and disinterested, Erwin only comes alive when he's playing video games or getting drunk with his rugby mates. The growing mid-life crisis is plain to see but, tired of his wife's attempts to bring him into the family, Erwin decides to leave, moving into a small flat attached to a bar. The separation (and booze) lifts him out of his funk, but he will soon discover that freedom can be the most illusory and destructive of pleasures.

Writer/director and MIFF Accelerator alumnus Kazik Radwanski (Tower, MIFF 2013) delivers an eye-opening sophomore feature in the caustic, acid-tongued How Heavy This Hammer. A pugnacious, hard-nosed portrait of masculinity in crisis, Radwanski's film finds an unexpectedly compelling and humane muse in the ill-mannered and slovenly Erwin: a slow-motion human train wreck you can't quite tear your eyes from.

"Driven sincerely by human compassion and curiosity … firmly establishes Radwanski as one of Canada's best working filmmakers." – Brooklyn Magazine

Screens with The Couple.

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