Little Lorraine was my first screening of TIFF 2025, and I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Starring Canada’s own Stephen Amell, with a small part played by Sean Astin, I was intrigued about a film set in Nova Scotia filled with Canadians.
Little Lorraine was inspired by a 2022 song called Lighthouse in Little Lorraine by Adam Baldwin, who also has a writing credit on the film. Andy Hines directed the music video for that song and was inspired to write and direct a movie telling the story. In under three years, the film was inspired, written, filmed and is now premiering at TIFF 2025, which couldn’t be more fitting for a film set in Canada.
The story follows a cocaine smuggling ring that took place in Nova Scotia in the 80s and 90s, which is interesting enough in itself. A town known for coal mining, Little Lorraine, faces the closure of their mines due to a tragic explosion. From there, lifelong friends, Jake (Steve Lund), Jimmy (Stephen Amell) and Tommy (Joshua Close) have to figure out how they will put food on the tables for their families. Enter shady Uncle Huey (Stephen McHattie), who seems too good to be true.
Spoilers already exist because the film does follow the song in many ways, but that doesn’t mean that creative liberties weren’t taken with the story. Adam Hines fills in the blanks in terms of the families, townspeople and a few artistic dream sequences to bring more to the story. Turning a six-minute-long song into a feature film takes some fresh ideas, but unfortunately, those didn’t always work in Little Lorraine.
Foreshadowing made many significant moments painfully obvious, ruining any tension or suspense I could have felt. Inspired by the song, it could have meant major plot points could change, but these hints assured me they would not, leading to a disappointing second half.
Issues also arose with the team trying to represent Canada. If you’re Canadian, you know what an East Coast accent sounds like, and though Tommy nailed it pretty well, albeit toning it down a bit, several main characters didn’t even attempt it, aside from Amell’s very Canadian “sorry”. I could hear the actors fall in and out of their accents often, and it would pull me from the story.
In the same vein, Little Lorraine would pepper in dream sequences to highlight Jimmy’s unrest. These ranged from the unknown to several being alive in a coffin. Though I could understand the symbolism of everything they were trying to portray, they really didn’t add anything other than a bit of cheese.
My biggest issue with Little Lorraine, however, was with how quickly the state of each man escalated throughout the film and the stereotype that they each fell into. You have the man who falls victim, the man who gets paranoid and the man who wants to be tough and do it for his family, but ultimately spirals out. Unfortunately, not only was what each went through entirely predictable, but there was no gradual change. The character development just wasn’t there.
Everything in Little Lorraine went zero to sixty in an instant. This also led to an interaction between Jimmy and a priest that felt completely unwarranted and unprovoked—likely for the sake of the song. They used alcohol as a justification, but just moments before, he had a completely different mindset. Amell also often felt like his demeanour jumped unnaturally, but whether this was writing, direction or acting is unclear.
Fast forward to the ending, where it really did feel like something out of an angry song, though it isn’t actually from the song. I won’t spoil things, but it felt like a real “Don’t mess with small town folks” message, but it really didn’t fit the overall story or characters. In the last few scenes, however, moments of peace Jimmy found throughout Little Lorraine now start to make sense, and the final shots pulled things together in a way I didn’t expect.
Little Lorraine at TIFF 2025 put a highlight on Canada, Canadian history, and even a Canadian song, but it didn’t bring the boat all the way to shore…so to speak. It left us with an uneven story and feelings to match.
