Lady Bear

(Peter McCubbin, 1985)
One suspects that they knew that the plot made no sense, so in order to distract us they piled on twist endings like Jenga. The boss knew it all along, dad isn't dead after all, the shrink is a spy, the librarian is a spy, etc. This is doubly disorienting because, while this is going on, other plot elements implode uselessly. The British guy Lady Bear was supposed to be spying on heads home unannounced after one brief scene and so much for that; her clown RCMP boyfriend doesn't know what the hell's going on even after several scenes of firsthand observation and/or hearty exposition. And anyway, he was gauche enough to put the moves on her immediately after her announcing that he was the Commie's mistress, and she was flaky enough to bite; what planet are we on here? The planet Emmeritus, of course - where women have nightmares about KGB karate class and men film infidelities with Bolexes in the heating ducts of unlit bedrooms. So low energy, sober-sided, and incomprehensible that it takes on a certain fascination in spite of itself.