By Jason Osiason

Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada follows Leonard Fife, played by Richard Gere, a dying documentarian who sits for one last filmed interview and begins to unravel the story of his life. What starts as a formal confessional soon breaks apart into fragments of memory. Jacob Elordi plays Leonard’s younger self with fire and urgency, while Gere shows us a man who has lost that vitality and is left with distance and regret. The tension between those two versions of Leonard gives the film its shape, though it rarely finds the rhythm to hold it all together.

At the center of Leonard’s confessions is his wife Emma, played by Uma Thurman. She appears both as the young woman Leonard first fell in love with and as the partner still at his side as he fades. The doubling is an unusual choice that at times adds weight but just as often feels distracting. Through Emma we see not only devotion but also betrayal, disappointment, and the quiet estrangement that hangs over the marriage. Their relationship becomes the clearest marker of what Leonard has lost.

There is ambition in Schrader’s approach. Memory collides with confession, fragments of a past self spill into the present, and the myths Leonard built around himself begin to break down. But the film often feels flat, circling around mortality and regret without the emotional weight it is reaching for. Gere plays Leonard with control and composure, but the performance stops short of piercing. Elordi brings more urgency, yet the energy fades whenever the film cuts back to the present.

Oh, Canada feels like it should devastate. Instead it plays as a muted character study, thoughtful in its ideas but hesitant in execution. Schrader reaches for something profound about memory and mortality, but the film remains restrained, more of a sketch than a full reckoning. It lingers but leaves you wanting more. [C]