Trigger

Once upon a time two rock and rollers shared a friendship, a band and a whole lot more. Now, 12 years after their band, Trigger, came to an end, the dysfunctional duo join forces once more for a benefit concert in Toronto. Kat (Molly Parker), who now works as a music producer in Los Angeles and Vic (the late Tracy Wright), who is reluctant to go down that road again, meet at a hip, high-rise restaurant that the more simple Vic finds uncomfortable, but perfectly fits Kat’s overdeveloped ego. Director Bruce McDonald eavesdrops on their conversation which ranges, sometimes spitefully, across the topics of punctuality, egoism, sacrifice and opportunism. The reunion meal resuscitates their rivalry and their long-dormant demons: alcohol and drugs. But time is fleeting and there is a rock concert appearance looming. They travel first to Vic’s apartment, where her writer boyfriend (Don McKellar) is waiting; then to the concert venue where Kat and Vic join forces to deal with the show’s ambivalent stage manager (Sarah Polley). Finally, they take the stage and deliver a performance neither would have thought possible just an hour earlier. Tracy Wright, who acted in McDonald’s first feature, Roadkill, in 1989, died of pancreatic cancer as the movie was being completed.

Trigger had its World Premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

Also see: Trigger, Bruce McDonald’s Cinematic Love Poem to Tracy Wright.