Retrospective

Loosely autobiographical, Wilson’s charming feature debut—which opened the Toronto International Film Festival’s inaugural Perspective Canada programme in 1985—follows teenaged Sandy, who lives with her close-knit family on a farm in the beautiful but sleepy Okanagan Valley.

“Nothing ever happens,” she complains to her diary in the film’s celebrated opening line.

Then something finally does: her cousin Butch, a James Dean lookalike with a know-it-all attitude, arrives from California in a flashy red convertible.

Everything about Butch is slicker, louder, sexier, and better than anything Sandy has ever encountered at home. He also isn’t quite all that he seems.

More than an affectionate, bittersweet coming-of-age tale, MY AMERICAN COUSIN is a meditation on the differences between us and our neighbours to the south, and it proved to be a key film in industrial terms, proving that an English-Canadian film could reach a popular audience and gain commercial success.

–Toronto International Film Festival