source: All the Wrong Reasons

James Ascher (Cory Monteith) is the manager of a department chainstore. His wife Kate (Karine Vanasse) is anxiety-ridden and monitors the security cameras. Nicole Cambria (Emily Hampshire) is the single-mom cashier struggling with money and her deadbeat ex-husband. Simon Brunson (Kevin Zegers) is a firefighter who recently lost his hand and takes a security job at the store. I love the introduction of these characters. The actors are all talented. It's set up for a great movie but the story doesn't move fast enough. At almost two hours, the movie is over-extended. It needs to be thirty minutes shorter and a lot tighter. There is great stuff in here but the movie needs more intensity.

Reading other reviews made me want to leave one. I only sought this movie because I love Cory. I'd watch paint dry if he was on the screen. I prepared for the slow pace or boredom one reviewer said because every Canadian movie I've ever watched is extremely Slow paced. I found Kate selfish and rude. She was not a very sympathetic character. Can't blame the cashier for wanting to climb James (Cory) like a tree. One look at the dimples and I'd be goo.

I've learned not to take seriously the category given to films by Optimum on Demand, which is where I saw All the Wrong Reasons. They have it listed as a "comedy" which is as absurd as listing "Ghostbusters" as a horror film. So I paid and started watching knowing almost nothing about it. I was quite pleasantly surprised. It's actually a drama about some working class young people somewhere (I'm not sure where exactly) in Canada, working in a Walmart-type store, and the relationships and interactions of a handful of characters. I could see how some viewers might find it boring, as it's more about the psychologies of the characters than it is focused on any great action or plot. Two of the main characters suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; how they each deal and cope with their personal experience and symptoms is the theme of the film. Needless to say, they come out at the end better for all that's happened. If you like a film that's primarily about people, their relationships and emotions, then you quite likely will like this. It's engrossing and well done, IMHO.

All the Wrong Reasons (2013): Dir: Gia Milani / Cast: Cory Monteith, Karine Vanasse, Kevin Zegers, Emily Hampshire, Denis Theriault: Excellent independent Canadian film about decisions and intent. Cory Monteith, in one of his final roles, plays James Ascher, the manager of a supermarket with hopes of becoming regional manager posted in Toronto. Karine Vanasse plays Kate, James's wife. She monitors the security cameras at the store while chowing down fortune cookies. She suffers from depression after witnessing the suicide of her sister a year earlier. She relies on prescription pills to deal with issues involving physical touch. Kevin Zegers plays Simon, new at the store although he yearns to get his old job as a fire fighter back. His left hand is a hook after an accident but he is determined to regain his dignity. Emily Hampshire plays a scheming cashier who engages James in an affair. She manipulates the ultimate downfall with a climax that delivers with a terrific comic resolution. She is an unfit mother often pawning off her child on others while the father is another reject of equal lack of morals. Denis Theriault adds comic relief as a fellow employee ass kissing his way to a promotion and just plainly coming off as annoying to Monteith. Director Gia Milani scores with an awesome cast and an inventive location in the department store. It deals with themes of depression while maintaining a witty comic edge. Of its four main characters, two move forward while two take deserving reverse routes. In the end it is one of the best films of the year for all the right reasons. Score: 10 / 10

Straight out you should know this movie made me so bored, and was so very predictable that I spent most of it moving furniture around in my apartment. (Bachelor suite, but still) However, this is a decent romantic comedy (sans comedy) made in Canada filled with Canadian talent who are all very good, and deeply committed to their rolls. The story is sound, under everything you have a life lesson about how people touch other people, and we effect each other in a variety of ways, good, and bad. Then the four main characters who each have a story that is unique to them as far as they are concerned. two PTSD survivors who need each other to grow, and the man left behind who only has eyes on the future, and his own gratification. Rounding out the quartet is the other woman who still thinks of herself as a girl, and continually does very negligent things in the time when she should be focusing on her Son, just so that she can feel needed by someone she thinks matters. So yes, I moved the furniture around in my apartment, but I also watched a pretty decent movie that just happens to be a real dark, and sometimes boring downer, but that is life isn't it? I have to tell you I guess that I did Enjoy this movie in the end, all of the loose ends are tied up in perfect, and imperfect little bows, and to each is their own. So I recommend this to people who like people who need people, and to other folks to. Jesse of www.jesse.ca

A really good, well-acted movie. I just am not content with one thing: the ending. I don't want to play down somebody's fears, not at all, but I do know people like Kate who use their fears as a weapon, who do not even try and cope with them and brace themselves - and why? It is so pleasant if everybody gives attention and has consideration and dances around you like the golden calf. (Stop reading here if you do not want any spoilers!) Nicole - I do not approve her actions, but I do understand her and have sympathy for her - is absolutely right when she says that Kate ruined James' life!! Well, he is to blame, too, not for the affair, but he should have divorced Kate long ago or at least not supported her this long and with this he enabled and reinforced her dwelling on her misery. I do not blame her for having the fears, but if she does not want to fight them for their own sake ( and she does not) and not for the sake of the people around her who she terrorizes completely with her madness, she should have left James and at best get a job where she can work at home without fellow workers. If she is alone she can be afraid and crazy as much as she likes, but if she wants attention and people around she has to fight to get better and not be so hideous and ruin James' life, who had been so kind and patient all along and does not deserve this, and Nicole's life. Not after what Kate did to James and what he did for her nevertheless. I am (only)quite happy with one person's ending, and that is Simon's. He has truly suffered an awful fate, and he fares remarkably - completely the opposite of selfish, mean Kate. And I am happy that he gets a bit of happiness back in the end. Unfortunately with Kate, I really hope she treats him much, much better than James. She was James' doom and is an evil being if she doesn't change. The ending is a completely wrongly placed moral comment about cheating - does not fit here at all/punishes the wrong people. But all in all good movie and it is also good to see Kevin Zegers again in a role he deserves.

Trailer—All the Wrong Reasons

All the Wrong Reasons