It’s hard to know how to distinguish fact from fiction, especially when someone else is telling the story. Details tend to play into the believability of a particular tale, and while specifics can make something seem realer, they can also reveal rehearsed inventions that have no basis in truth. Paul Schrader’s latest film Oh, Canada follows a documentary filmmaker at the end of his life being interviewed about everything he’s done, which may or may not include a handful of fabrications that present a discombobulated and perplexing picture of a self-centered man.

Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) is a prize-winning national treasure of Canada. After leaving the United States to avoid the draft, Fife married Emma (Uma Thurman), one of his students. Two other students from the same era, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli) and  Diana (Victoria Hill), are eager to document what they can of his life while he’s still coherent but days – or possibly hours – away from being overtaken by his cancer. Fife insists that Emma be present to hear everything he says, but she expresses concern that what he’s saying isn’t right and that her former peers are taking advantage of a sick man by recording him.

Schrader has never been one to conform to a particular mold, and this film is no exception. Based on the novel Foregone by Russell Banks, this film is considerably less dark than recent works like Master Gardener, The Card Counter, and First Reformed, avoiding any physical violence or truly sinister themes. Instead, Fife is the one wielding hurt, moving through women and families with remarkable speed on the way to his current marriage with Emma, who acknowledges that pieces of what he says are true but insists that he’s conflating other things and misrepresenting himself. It’s hard to know who the real Fife is, but he certainly doesn’t seem to have a good impression of himself looking back on everything even if he’s all too eager to share it with an adoring audience he seems to want to disappoint.

Working with cinematographer Andrew Wonder, Schrader makes intriguing choices to represent the larger-than-life nature of Fife’s tales. Many flashback scenes are in black-and-white with a younger Fife (Jacob Elordi) taking up nearly the entire frame with the camera below and up close to him. In some cases, Elordi is replaced with Gere even at times when Fife is clearly meant to be younger. Thurman’s Emma is visibly taller than Gere’s Fife, a fascinating inconsistency given that Elordi is significantly taller than both of them. It feels like a deliberate choice that’s meant to cast increasing doubt on whether Elordi’s Fife is actually him or just a character, especially since he seems much more jovial and enthusiastic than the disgruntled adult audiences meet every time Gere portrays him on screen.

Conducting interviews with Fife speaking directly to the camera works well as a framing device, and the room in which he’s in also provides additional information. At one point, he repeatedly shouts “Fraud!” at Malcolm and insists that he get up so that Fife can look at Emma while he’s talking instead, and he pieces together that Malcolm is having an affair with his assistant, judging him in voiceover while admitting that he would do exactly the same thing in his position. That Fife is so well-regarded seems strange given how much vitriol he hurls at everyone around him, but it’s also possible, as Emma repeatedly says, that his condition has turned him into someone else who legitimately doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Gere delivers a commanding performance that is most effective because of its restraint, with Fife seated in a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap and helpless to take care of himself while he is viciously insulting both those who are there to defend themselves and those who either aren’t or aren’t even real. Elordi provides a nice contrast to Gere, and Thurman’s interpretation of Emma feels just as hard to read at some moments as the many versions of Fife. There’s no denying that the story being told here is interesting and will demand the attention of audiences, but, as usual, Schrader doesn’t feel the need to provide a neat or comprehensive ending. There’s much to be unpacked from this combination of conflicting stories, and Schrader leaves a good deal of that work to audiences after the credits roll.

Grade: B

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Oh, Canada makes its North American premiere in the Gala Presentations section at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.