Guest Of Honour
Internationally-acclaimed veteran filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s complex, absorbing family drama about a father-daughter relationship wrestling with past traumas that inform present circumstances. Jim Davis (played brilliantly by David Thewlis) is a health inspector in Hamilton, making sure restaurants are up to health code standards. His daughter, Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira), a high school music teacher, has been recently incarcerated for inappropriate behaviour with students. Jim is convinced that she is innocent, but his efforts to reduce her sentence are blocked by Veronica’s mysterious refusal to cooperate. In the midst of trying to understand his daughter’s attitude, Jim channels his energy and frustration into his work, with some unsettling results and, as always in Egoyan, some startling revelations.