July 18 to August 4, 2024
FILM FESTIVAL
Fantasia 2024
Fantasia Film Festival
PROGRAMME
Selection
A former tennis star receives psychic training to locate the hit-and-run driver who ruined his life in The Paragon. Dutch (Benedict Wall) once had a seemingly perfect life as an aspiring tennis player, with his loving wife Emily (Jessica Grace Smith) and adopted drug-dealer brother Oates (Shadon Meredith). However, following a hit-and-run incident, where his heart stopped for six minutes, Dutch’s life begins to fall apart. Desperate to find and get revenge against the driver, Dutch decides to receive training in the psionic arts from the mysterious psychic Lyra (Florence Noble), who in turn wants help to find a power gem called the Paragon, before her evil brother Haxan (Jonny Brugh).
The Paragon Synopsis
The Paragon is a psychic comedy-thriller written, directed, and self-financed by New Zealand filmmaker Michael Duignan. The film stars Benedict Wall (Shadow in the Cloud) as Dutch, a former teacher of “knife fight tennis,” who is crippled in a hit-and-run, which is followed by his wife Emily revealing, in a bullet-point e-mail, that she is with another man and leaving him. Desperate for vengeance for his ruined life, Dutch reluctantly signs up for psionic training from hooded psychic Lyra and soon discovers that he is a powerful hyperdimensional being.
My Thoughts on The Paragon
In a nutshell, The Paragon is what if you combine the basic premise of Scanners and Doctor Strange with absurd New Zealand comedy. While the film does drag a bit in the third act, the comic chemistry between leads Benedict Wall and Floence Noble work quite well, especially how the latter’s lack of emotion contrasts with Wall’s skeptic-turned-believer. However, the true scene-stealer of The Paragon is Johnny Brugh (What We Do in the Shadows, Mega Time Squad) as Lyra’s incredibly evil brother Haxan, who leads an army of plastic-wrapped psychic slaves.
Trailer for The Paragon – Fantasia 2024
