Nobody Waved Goodbye

Eighteen year-old Peter lives with his parents in a middle-class Toronto suburb and rebels constantly against the dead-end materialist values he thinks they represent. While his girlfriend, Julie, is also unhappy in suburbia, she has a better relationship with her family than does Peter, who is constantly mocking and belittling his parents, sister, and sister's fiancé. After yet another argument with his parents, Peter decides to move out on his own. He rents a small apartment and does odd jobs. Julie, meanwhile, also leaves her family. When Peter asks his father for a loan so that he and Julie can get a fresh start, he is refused. Angry and embittered, Peter steals money and a car and resolves to leave Toronto forever.

Originally conceived within the NATIONAL FILM BOARD as a documentary on disaffected youth, Nobody Waved Goodbye evolved gradually, and somewhat clandestinely, into a groundbreaking Canadian fiction feature film on the same subject. While examining the serious generational, cultural and economic fissures in pristine postwar Canadian suburbia, OWEN also created an important first step for the still nascent Canadian feature film industry. By delivering this low-budget drama about the Canadian experience, a feat virtually unheard of at the time in English-speaking Canada, Owen demonstrated the relevance and dramatic power of our own stories rendered in a medium almost totally dominated in Canada by Hollywood. From its low-budget, improvisational modes of production to its downbeat narrative of failed rebellion, Nobody Waved Goodbye remains essential viewing for any true and serious appreciation of film culture in Canada.

Author TOM MCSORLEY