“Is this how you love your family?”

The Canadian film, Mile Zero is the story of divorced dad Derek (Michael Riley) who tries to make a new life for himself. Unfortunately, Derek can’t seem to make the necessary adjustments to life without his son Will (Connor Widdows) and wife Allison (Sabrina Grdevich). Derek spends his evenings watching and re-watching precious home videos of his family life before the divorce. He’s locked in grief for a past life, and while it’s perfectly understandable, Derek’s life takes an unhealthy turn.

Derek gives his young son a stereo and insists that it is placed in the bedroom. The stereo is actually capable of zooming video images from Will’s room to Derek’s lonely apartment. Ostensibly, this allows Derek to see his son 24/7, and also provides the absent father with a sense that he is still able to watch over his son. Unfortunately, when another man enters his ex-wife’s life, Derek begins to suspect that Will is being molested. Derek kidnaps Will and heads North.

Mile Zero covers some old familiar territory here–the divorced dad, the fractured family, the fight for visitation etc. Mile Zero, however, also looks at some of these scenes in new, sympathetic ways, so we don’t just see a demented father. The film makes excellent use of flashbacks to accentuate several points–Derek’s arrival in his new, bare apartment, a moment when his wife tells him she no longer loves him, and Will’s birth. These flashbacks show that Derek is grieving for a life he lost, and so he isn’t portrayed as a complete ogre. The film plays with the idea that Derek’s motives may not be quite so pure when he crosses the line with the video recording device. Is the video recorder really to give Derek an added sense of being with his son, or is this just his method of intruding into his ex-wife’s life, and trying to spy on events? Derek seems like a fairly sympathetic character, but there’s something about his agitation and scruffiness that doesn’t bode well. As the film continues, Derek’s many problems become glaringly apparent.

Mile Zero has a moody restlessness that admirably matches the storyline. Unfortunately, the film rehashes too much old, familiar territory to really grab one’s attention, and great cinematography, accompanied by a tight, focused plot still fail to produce anything more than an average film.