The Maiden is a 2022 drama written and directed by Canadian Graham Foy (Paradise Falls, Mouseland and August 22, This Year) and shot on 16mm film. The Maiden is his debut feature-length film.  The cast is made up of mainly first-timers, with no previous experience in cinema. Jackson Sluiter plays Kyle, Marcel T. Jimenez plays Colton, Hayley Ness is Whitney, Kaleb Blough is Tucker Siena Yee is June, and Charlotte Clarke plays Charlotte.

As the film starts, we are introduced to Colton (Jimenez) and Kyle (Sluiter), they’re hanging out together, skateboarding and hanging around a derelict/unfinished house. Just shooting the breeze and behaving like any ordinary teens. When the pair start hanging around in a ravine as the light starts to fade Kyle gets caught on the railway track and is run over as Colton watches on. Naturally, this has a catastrophic effect on Colton, who descends into a deep, dark depression. Upon returning to the ravine, Colton finds his friend's shoe. He creates a small raft, places the shoe on the raft and lets it float down the stream, in a move similar to a Viking sea burial, only without setting it on fire. As the boys had done for a dead cat they found at the beginning of the movie. He throws himself into the stream in an attempt to feel some sort of emotion other than anger and grief. One day, after spending some time in the ravine, Colton sees a search in operation, the people are shouting for a girl called Whitney, a quiet loner who went missing at the same time as Kyle. On his next visit to the ravine, Colton discovers the missing girl’s journal hidden among the rocks. He picks it up and starts to read…

I don’t want to go any further into describing the events that follow, as it feels like this is a good place to end my synopsis of the storyline. Needless to say, the film is largely about the bonds formed between teenagers, and feelings of loss and depression. However, there is an element of magical realism prevalent throughout the film, too, that is fairly integral to what happens, particularly in the film’s last half hour. Ultimately, the film doesn’t spell everything out for the viewer, it leaves certain important ideas open to interpretation. This has always been a plot device that I really like, but I know is not always popular.  The film itself is very well made, considering it is a debut feature and reminds me in places of Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge, albeit there are many more differences between the two films. The cast are also superb, particularly Sluiter, Jimenez and Ness. You would never believe this is their first role.

Overall, this is quite an astonishing piece of filmmaking from a massively inexperienced group of super-talented young people. It feels mature and more like the work of someone embedded within the low-budget art house scene than a first-time feature director and a troupe of inexperienced actors. It’s a beautiful, intelligent, surreal mystery that draws the viewer into its world. The ending will leave viewers with many questions and many different interpretations, but I think it’s meant to. 

This Blu-ray release from Altered Innocence features an audio commentary, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes and a booklet with some amazing photos by Mark Peckmezian and words from Saffron Maeve. Altogether, this is a great package for an even more amazing film. One of the best I have seen in a very long time.