The latest film from director Bruce McDonald focuses on Henry Andreas (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), a man who has to care for his infant son by himself, while his wife Alyssa (Sarah Allen) is in prison for sleeping with an underaged teenager named Colin Nesmith (Dylan Authors). Being the husband of a convicted pedophile is a hard burden for Henry to live with, especially as others criticise Henry’s continued devotion to his wife. With Alyssa due to be released soon, Henry starts becoming obsessed with confronting the boy who ruined his life, which ends up bringing Henry dangerously to the breaking point. After getting very meta with his 2010 anti-sequel Hard Core Logo 2, Bruce McDonald returns with this darkly humorous character study about about a man on the brink of a breakdown, as he tries to come to terms with the crimes of his wife. The Husband was co-written by actor Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, who plays Henry as a guy with major self-esteem issues, whose pent up rage about his wife’s crime starts to emerge when he spots the boy she slept with walking by as he drives. This begins a dangerous obsession as Henry neglects both his job and infant son, in his quest to get answers (and possibly revenge) for why this kid slept with his wife. The Husband features two different portrayals of Henry’s wife Alyssa, both through her highly dishevelled “real self” in prison and the highly seductive version Henry sees in dreams and flashbacks. It is quite obvious that Henry was hurt by this event, even if he pretends that he isn’t, and he is desperate to know why Alyssa did what she did. He is also quite stressed out about having to put up with the criticism of those around him, as well as playing nice with Alyssa’s father (Stephen McHattie). This leads to his obsessive stalking of Colin, which is more likely to make the whole situation worse than better. While it’s safe to say that The Husband is played out as a comedy, the plot does gets much more dark and dramatic as the film progresses. In fact, it becomes a bit harder to sympathize with Henry as his obsession reaches the point, where he is in danger of going to jail himself. However, that is probably the point of the movie, which is about this man reaching his lowest points, so he can learn to move on from this life-changing event. All together, I can say that I found The Husband to be a darkly humorous and pretty enjoyable character study.8 | LIKED IT
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