"Aurora Borealis": Veteran actors do what they can in slacker film

Joshua Jackson, a child actor when he starred in a Seattle-based musical production of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," is now best-known for his role as teenage motormouth Pacey Witter on "Dawson's Creek."

"Aurora Borealis," directed by veteran stage producer James Burke, seems designed to reward Jackson with his biggest adult part to date, though it doesn't give the Vancouver, B.C., native a lot to work with. If you've seen "The Last Kiss," "Garden State" or "Lonesome Jim," you know the territory.

This is a 20-something slacker movie, distinguished mostly by the opportunities it gives several veteran supporting players to shine. And even they can't defeat an ending so cliché-driven that everything falls neatly into place for the restless hero.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"Aurora Borealis," with Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Juliette Lewis, Louise Fletcher. Directed by James Burke, from a screenplay by Brent Boyd. 110 minutes. Rated R for rough language. Harvard Exit.

Jackson plays Duncan Shorter, a Minneapolis boy with some athletic talent and zero ability to find meaningful work. As his upscale brother keeps reminding him, he has a genius for taking dead-end jobs and getting fired from them. His adolescent relationships with several longtime buddies only add to the sense that he's headed nowhere.

More intriguing are his desperate grandparents, Ronald (Donald Sutherland) and Ruth (Louise Fletcher), who have become substitute parents. But Ronald is succumbing to dementia, and when he's lucid he's usually contemplating suicide. Ruth tries to make the best of an increasingly dire situation. Their scenes together suggest an authenticity that's missing from Duncan's distressingly generic problems.

The movie's real spark plug, however, is Juliette Lewis' Kate — a smart, eccentric nurse who treats Ronald and falls in love with Duncan mostly on the basis of the stories Ronald tells her about his grandson.

When she finally meets Duncan, he falls somewhat short of the legend his grandfather has created. It's an interesting dilemma that the screenwriter, Minnesota playwright Brent Boyd, introduces too late and then fails to explore.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com