New Waterford Girl (2000)

New Waterford Girl (2000) - Liane Balaban

Taglines: Get pregnant now. Lose virginity later.

It’s sometime in the 1970’s. Fifteen year old loner Agnes Marie Pottie – nicknamed Mooney – dreams of escaping life in New Waterford, a coastal Nova Scotia town on Cape Breton Island. She has quiet contempt for most of the people around her – including her large family – who don’t share her sensibilities.

They, who are ruled by Catholic mores, in turn think she’s unconventional and weird. She thinks she’s realized her dream when, with the help of her teacher Cecil Sweeney, who himself has escaped to New Waterford to find himself (at which he has been unsuccessful so far), she has been awarded a scholarship to attend an art school in New York.

Her dreams are temporarily dashed when her parents don’t allow her to go. She devises a plan to get out of New Waterford, one that goes against her loner status. In the meantime, a bit of New York comes to New Waterford in the form of Lou Benzoa, who, with her dance instructor mother, has temporarily moved next door to the Pottie’s to escape life in the Bronx until “the stink dies down”. Lou, who becomes friends with Mooney, quickly gains the reputation in town as the female equalizer, whose powers only work on the guilty.

New Waterford Girl (2000) - Liane Balaban

New Waterford Girl is a Canadian drama-comedy film, released in 1999, directed by Allan Moyle, and written by Tricia Fish. New Waterford Girl stars Liane Balaban as Agnes-Marie “Moonie” Pottie, a teenager in New Waterford, Nova Scotia who dreams of life beyond her small-town home.

She is inspired and fascinated when a family from New York City, with an idiosyncratic daughter her own age, Lou Benza (played by Tara Spencer-Nairn) moves into the house next door. Agnes discovers that Lou has a talent for boxing, leading to her taking Lou in as ‘muscle’ in an attempt to start some changes around their town. The film’s cast also includes Mary Walsh, Nicholas Campbell, Cathy Moriarty, Andrew McCarthy, Mark McKinney, Bette MacDonald, Ashley MacIsaac, Krista MacDonald, Cassie MacDonald, Darren Keay and Patrick Joyce.

New Waterford Girl Movie Poster (2000)

New Waterford Girl (2000)

Directed by: Allan Moyle
Starring: Liane Balaban, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Mary Walsh, Nicholas Campbell, Cathy Moriarty, Andrew McCarthy, Darren Keay, Cassie MacDonald, Krista MacDonald
Screenplay by: Tricia Fish
Production Design by: Emanuel Jannasch
Cinematography by: Derek Rogers
Film Editing by: Susan Maggi
Costume Design by: Debra Hanson
Set Decoration by: Norma Jean Sanders
Music by: Geoff Bennett, Longo Hai, Ben Johannesen
Distributed by: Odeon Films
Release Date: May 30, 2000

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