By Saffron Maeve 

Two character studies compounded by a misplaced notebook, Graham Foy’s sparkling debut The Maiden follows two best friends, Colton (Marcel T. Jiménez) and Kyle (Jackson Sluiter), through the backwoods of their Alberta suburb. The pair skateboard, tag underpasses, loiter around construction sites, and pick flowers for a cat’s burial at sea, until a fatal mishap severs their time together. Concurrently, Whitney (Hayley Ness), a skittish teenage girl, spins out of control at the thought of losing her best friend, who is becoming increasingly absorbed with boys and booze. Kyle and Whitney’s paths commingle; time crimps into itself; social boundaries dissolve; resurrections and a domiciliary afterlife ensue. 

There’s no let-up to the thrumming lament felt by Colton, shuttled through glacial dissolves of industrialized enclaves and the soft clang of trains in the distance. Foy’s background in cinematography is brought to bear here; shooting on 16mm with DP Kelly Jeffrey, the pair burnish a grainy, doleful idea until it glows. The Maiden’s slick technical accomplishments only buff its shrewd rendering of teen camaraderie and grieving: grief as a muscle you flex, a throb and release; a hand on the heel of a shoe, or a stone lobbed at a passing freight train. 

Saffron Maeve