4 Star

What is Right, and Who is Wrong.

Following on from his short film ‘A Blessing from the Sea’, writer/director Adam Perry brings us his first feature film in this close and personal thriller. With an award-winning screenplay, the viewer is in for a treat in this Canadian slice of life on the edge of society.

Skinners Pond, a small village in Prince Edward Island, Canada, life is hard and most men have gone West to work in high risk, high paying jobs, but Kevin Doucette (Stephen Oates, Riverhead, A Fire in the Cold Season) is determined to earn a living the old way. By spending his days trawling the beaches for ‘Irish Moss’ (Seaweed) for animal feed, which he sells to the old hippy Omer Tom (Bill McFadden, Pit Pony: A Diamond in The Rough, Pogey Beach). He does not earn anywhere near enough to support himself and his pregnant wife Sam Doucette (Liane Balaban, Definitely, Maybe, One Week), who keeps telling him to phone her brother out West, who has been out there for over five years and is earning a fortune.

But Kev is stubborn, and keeps on with his long hours for little return. That is until one day whilst stocking up his Moss he finds a $50 note, a lucky in Skinners Pond. But one leads to two, which leads to a holdall full of notes. With a quick look around, he finds the place deserted, and he thinks this is his lucky day.

Unlike sisters Josie (Sophia Bell) and Gussy (Celia Owen, Pogey Beach, Moonshine (TV Series)) who have just fallen foul of new police constable Susan Crowe (Andrea Bang, Stay the Night, The Prodigal Dad) who believes she must make a mark in her new territory, but her superior Jim Bradley (Matt Cooke, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Cypher) takes a much more laid back approach to life in this far-flung windswept piece of land.

Elsewhere, a very annoyed Troy (Joel Thomas Hynes, Cast No Shadow, Body and Bones) discovers that the motorboat and the bags of money he was expecting to find has somehow slipped its moorings and disappeared. Where could it have drifted to?

What would you do if you found a life changing amount of money? Well, Kev thinks that he is a very lucky man, but he has forgotten that every holdall full of money once had an owner and that owner may be very angry, and want their money back at any cost.

A Small Fortune is a well written tale of a man unwilling to come to terms with the changing world around him, But his world is about to be turned upside-down, and it will affect the whole community. A great watch.

A Small Fortune is available on Digital