Joe and Roxy
1957 · 28m · Canada
Directed by Don Haldane
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, romance
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Teenagers Joe and Roxy navigate first romance while coping with family strain, as Roxy clings to ideals after her parents' divorce and Joe finds little guidance from his father.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1957 teen romance that plays it completely straight—no irony, no deconstruction, just sincere melodrama about divorce and paternal absence. It's almost too earnest to be interesting, which somehow makes it fascinating as a time capsule of what passed for emotional honesty before irony colonized cinema.
Haldane's precise mise-en-scène and the film's unflinching engagement with post-war family dissolution situate it firmly in the humanist documentary-drama tradition; the restraint in both performance and editing demonstrates a formal confidence that understands when NOT to punctuate emotion.
The genius is purely acoustic—Haldane lets silences and ambient domestic sound carry the weight of unspoken resentment and longing rather than scoring sentiment, a choice that transforms what could've been soap opera into something genuinely intimate and specific to these two kids.