Tight Lettuce

Sometimes Joel (Dakota Daulby) thinks it should be simple. His father Bodo (Emmanuel Bilodeau) may be an addict, but if he can just love him enough, it must be possible to save him. With enough love, he’ll be motivated to change.

Most viewers familiar with addiction will know at the outset that it isn’t going to work like that.

Based on a true story, Tight Lettuce, which screened as part of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival, feels intensely real and personal throughout, even when Bodo’s behaviour is absurd. “A smooth sea never made a strong sailor, sonny boy,” he tells his son, as if to suggest that by behaving in this way, he’s doing his son a favour. It’s deeply obnoxious but also charming, because he clearly believes it, and therein lies the nub of the problem. Riding down a country road on his motorbike, wearing his crash helmet with flip flops and an open shirt, Bodo has the wild, unfettered spirit of a Hollywood hero, but he destroys everything that he touches.

Joel has a loving partner, Taylor (Christie Burke), who wants to try for a baby. They will, he says, just as soon as he’s got his dad clean. She understands. She’s been understanding for a long time. Perhaps she thinks that if she can just love him enough, he’ll set aside his hopeless quest and start focusing some real attention on their relationship.

The performances here are spot on, but it’s the rich detail that really brings it to life. Bodo declaring his undying love on the patio of the long-since-remarried ex wife who just wants him to leave her in peace. The guilty secret she has never felt able to share with her son. Bodo’s endless optimism as he treads grapes for an exploitative vintner, and the innovative ways he finds to make extra bits of money. The scrapes he gets into due to bills unpaid and money purportedly owed to him by others with little more grip on reality, so that Joel feels afraid of what might happen were he not there to rescue him. Bodo has clearly burned through a series of rescuers and, accordingly, has rarely experienced the finding out stage associated with such behaviour. When his dream threatens to turn into a nightmare, someone comes along to buy him ice cream.

Supported by Taylor and his mother, Joel has never really reached the finding out stage either, for all that he experiences frustration. At the centre of this film, he nevertheless lives his life like a supporting character. In between the wild adventures and unlikely discoveries that carry the film along, there is always that tension as we wait for the penny to drop, wait for him to gain his father’s level of self-awareness.

“You’ve got to keep the lettuce tight,” Bodo says.

Reviewed on: 19 Jul 2026