ETIENNE

When
it comes to bizarre this enchanting quirky tale about a loner taking his dying
best (and only) friend on a road trip is definitely up there.  Especially when you know that the said best
friend is a dwarf hamster named Etienne.

Richard
drifts through his gentle small life.  He’s
just got a new job as maintenance man in boutique hotel in San Francisco, and
when he’s not working he spends every spare moment building new elaborate
playgrounds out of spent toilet rolls for his beloved Etienne.  When Etienne goes off his food one day
Richard whisks him off to the Veterinary’s Office where the poor hamster is
declared terminally ill and it is recommended that he be euthanized next
week.  Before he agrees to this Richard decides
to get on his bike and put Etienne in his basket so that he can show him the world (or the bits of it around San
Francisco at least) before he sheds off his mortal coil.

The
two of them encounter a few more weird but extremely likeable oddities that
include a back-packer scientist collecting slug slime; two off-beat travelling
musicians (Great Northern’s Rachel Stolte & Solon Bixler playing themselves,
and you might well ask, who the hell are they unless you have acquired a taste
for their ‘eclectic music’!).  There is
also a pinhole camera expert who ropes Richard into assisting him, and then
there is Elodie who’s just finished College just after her boyfriend finished
with her, so she too is on the road to nowhere in particular.

There’s
a lovely and somewhat unexpected twist when Richard loses his rodent but finds
a girl in what may even end up as a happy-ever-after story after all.  That’s if you prefer girls to cute furry
hamsters.

It’s
hard not to like this wee film, but I actually loved it.  But that’s why I am often called a
heteroclite!

★★★★★★★★