Fifteen Minutes to Go Anywhere
DONKEYHEAD – a film by Agam Darshi – SPOILERS
Cycling in the snow at -40 C, Mona takes a spill.
A glimpse of a Salvation Army Santa tells us it’s December. Mona Ghumun (Agam Darshi) is caring for her father (Marvin Ishmael) who has cancer, something she has been doing for the past seven years. (Doctors gave him six months to live back then.) Her aunt (Balinder Johal) comes by with others for the daily recitation of the Sikh holy texts, and Mona takes the opportunity to get together with her lover, Brent (Kim Coates). A short time later, her father has a stroke. At the hospital, Mona is informed that her father has a living will preventing him from being kept alive by artificial means. Mona is not letting him off the hook that easily. (We learn things later that explain that.) Against medical advice she brings him back home, and calls her family.
Balinder Johal delivers a strong performance as Mona’s Aunt, who is always more bewildered than upset at the antics of the family.
Darshi recently tweeted an explanation of the film’s title: “…donkeyhead is ‘khota’ (donkey). it’s a word sometimes punjabi parents use to call their kids if they are doing something silly or wrong. Which the protagonist Mona does often!” Mona indeed does many things that might be considered silly or wrong, e.g. riding a bicycle in a Regina winter; having a three-year affair with the (married) family lawyer; and (as her father unkindly reminds her) being a writer who doesn’t write. (Shortly before her father was taken ill, she received a $20K advance from a publisher for a book she has yet to complete.) Alone in her bedroom, she takes out the publisher’s letter and stares at it, as though to remind herself that someone once believed in her.
A drunken Mona prepares to tell her comatose father exactly what she thinks of him. Note that the pictures on the wall exclude their deceased mother, who is seldom mentioned in the film. Mom’s photo is relegated to the top of the dresser.
Mona’s three siblings, all of whom got away from their father’s house as soon as they could, arrive (each from a different city) in the same Uber.
Parminder (Stephen Lobo) is a doctor living in New York. Parm is Mona’s twin, but unlike his sister, he seeks to avoid conflict at all costs.
Raj (Husein Madhavji) is a Toronto real estate agent who makes more money than Parm and has a fondness for ginger beef. His wife is vacationing in Cuba, and sends him photos of herself on the beach.
Sandy (Sandy Sidhu) is married with kids and living in London (presumably the one in Ontario), and wants to take dad back to the hospital right away so he can die in accordance with his wishes. She is pleased that one of her kids has been accepted into a kindergarten for gifted children, but is displeased when, on a video call with her husband, she sees that her children are drinking box juice. (“Since when are our children allowed to drink that stuff?”)
Raj, Parm, and Sandy try to convince Mona to sell the house.
Over pitchers of beer in a downtown pub, Mona describes some of her more horrific childhood experiences, and we learn a lot about the Guhmun family. For trying to run away to Russia (she was always trying to do that) she received a severe beating from her father. (Parm says it was pretty bad. Mona says she had worse.) Once she accidentally set fire to a rug, and for that was tied to the balcony in weather so cold she got frostbite. (Sandy, always trying to be helpful, says that the rug was silk and an heirloom. Mona asserts that it was cheap polyester, and she is almost certainly right about that. Silk will only burn while it is actually in contact with the flame.) Raj can’t bring himself to use the restroom because it’s “disgusting”, and mostly stays out of the conversation.
Sandy repeats what are doubtless her father’s long ago words. “It was silk and it was an heirloom”, she says of the rug Mona burned. Sandy is the most irritating and at the same time the most interesting of Mona’s relatives.
The puzzle of Parm is revealed slowly as the story progresses, culminating in what is probably the best scene in the film, when he becomes unexpectedly enraged at Mona and begins throwing things at her until he realizes that he is imitating his father’s behaviour, and becomes immediately contrite.
Mona is a writer blocked by a lack of self-assertiveness, and she first manages to express her feelings constructively near the end of things, when her sister suggests that her problems would largely be solved if only she left Regina. Mona corrects her. “For your information,” she says, “I actually like this city, okay? If that’s OK with you? The people are really cool and the weed is cheap and it takes 15 minutes to go anywhere.” Writer/director Darshi told Jasmin Senghera of 5XPress: “I’ve always found it interesting when people choose to stay where other people want to leave. Regina in that sense mirrors who Mona is. She’s stuck in this place that’s a little rough around the edges like her.”
The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival where it won awards for Best Feature Film, Best Editing (Bridget Durnford), and Best Supporting Actor (Stephen Lobo).