This Location of Unknown Possibilities
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
When English Professor Marta Spëk is offered a film consultant’s contract, she’s fighting a bad case of year-end doldrums. She signs on, imagining that exotic hands-on work at the sandy location shoot for a made-in-Canada biopic will open doors of opportunity and spark her creativity – or at the very least supply interesting material for her family’s annual Labour Day gathering. Meanwhile, her soon-to-be boss, the handsome cynic Jake Nugent, who’s well experienced with shoot dynamics in remote sites, hopes only to stamp out inevitable problems before they swallow the budget and cost him a job. Script changes (massive), on-set mishaps (minor), and after-hours misadventures (many) guarantee that Marta and Jake won’t easily forget this week in the Okanagan Valley. A wry look at the shoestring end of a billion-dollar industry and the occasional but profound foolishness of the human heart, This Location of Unknown Possibilities makes a case for black comedy being the best lens for viewing contemporary life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Frustrated with academic life, English Professor Marta Sp k takes the bold step of signing on as consultant to what begins as a historical film, shot on location in exotic Penticton, British Columbia. Armed with enthusiasm and a profound ignorance about the realities of the movie industry, Sp k leaps into a world where budgets implode, scripts leap from genre to genre overnight, where facts are cast aside in favor of drama and where reality matters less than appealing to easily bored nerds. Mentoring Sp k is the cheerfully amoral Jake Nugent, a man whose surface cynicism, driven by long experience with the film industry, is just part of his determined professionalism. The work is surprisingly warm, accepting its characters' foibles without meanness, happily cynical about the realities of the entertainment industry without being jaded or spiteful; the contrasting views of na ve Sp k and veteran Nugent grant the work greater depth. Absurd without being absurdist, the satire draws its strength from its verisimilitude, the impression that as ludicrous as parts are, none of this is impossible or indeed, particularly unlikely. Billed as a black comedy, the work proves oddly reassuring; despite unforeseen complications its characters remain determined to prevail.
