It’s quaint under our current circumstances to think that in the 1970s, the growing acceptance and use of cannabis were considered by conservative politicians as a “pandemic.” That’s at least the word used by John Bradow (Derek McGrath), a stand-in for former Ontario premier John Robarts, as he tries to slow down Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s efforts to decriminalize weed decades before it was cool. The result, as detailed in the based on a true story drama “The Marijuana Conspiracy,” saw Bradow throw money at a study he was certain would confirm his belief about the deleterious effects of weed. When it became clear that results wouldn’t go his way, funding was yanked, and the women who endured three months of seriously dubious experimentation never saw the outcome of the clinical investigation that, for some of them, created long-term wounds. If there is outrage to be felt, it doesn’t resonate in this film which renders that injustice prosaic, and never achieves a buzz higher than an after-school special.
Julia Sarah Stone has found a groove, that is quickly becoming too familiar, of playing a homeless/wayward youth, and following “Honey Bee” and “Come True,” she reprises that role a third straight time as Mary, leading the ensemble in “The Marijuana Conspiracy.” After being fired from her job, and with no stable place to rest her head, an opportunity to get high and get paid for it seems too good to be true. That’s the general vibe from everyone who answers the ad for the study, and each arrives with their own reasons for lighting up, from Marissa (Morgan Kohan) who wants the cash to start her own graphic design business to Mourinda (Tymika Tafari), who is looking for a way to cover her pre-law studies, to Jane (Brittany Bristow) who will use the cash to fly out west and join a hippie commune.
The framework of the study will require some rigorous devotion from the women: they will stay for 98 days at a facility, with no contact from the outside world, where they will smoke weed, and complete macramé projects to earn their “wages,” while a group of scientists constantly monitor and measure their health and productivity. Helping to sell this somewhat unsound experience is the wavy gravy Dr. Barry Fincher (Greg Calderone) who, if he wasn’t running the study, would probably roll a fat one with his subjects. As much as Bradow not so subtly pushes Fincher to get him the results he wants, the progressive peace and love behaviorist emphasizes that the data alone will bear out the truth. Of course, it doesn’t take long to realize that grass isn’t the gateway to personal degradation, setting Fincher and Bradow on the path to a very Canadian (read: polite) showdown.
Slowly sprawling out unforgivingly over two hours, in all that time, “The Marijuana Conspiracy” never manages to get beyond the surface of its story. The film earnestly wants to detail the deteriorating effect being locked up for over three months had on these women, but it soon becomes a repetitive cycle of various characters running down hallways and looking defeated on some very nice ‘70s couches. The story’s main conflict — between Fincher and Bradow — is very much secondary, and one that doesn’t build up much steam beyond the two men, dully standing in equal idealistic opposition, agreeably disagreeing with each other. In fact, it’s hard to register exactly what tone the film is going for. With a soundtrack that veers from swampy blues-rock to Indian ragas, “The Marijuana Conspiracy” feints toward playing with an energized docu-drama vibe. But the movie shows its true hand during its dramatic moments when it turns up what must be licensed, acoustic Muzak (there is no credited composer) to layer in a sickly, movie-of-the-week sentimentality that is difficult to take with any seriousness, particularly when coupled with hand-squeezing-shoulder dialogue like, “You’re going to make a great Mom.”
Written and produced and directed by Craig Pryce, you wish he would’ve given one of those jobs to somebody else if only to bring a bit more focus to the story. Attempting not just to tell this true story but paint a portrait of the time, the screenplay very broadly and not very effectively weaves in threads illustrating the racism and sexism women of the era would’ve faced. It’s a broad gesture that like everything else in the film, doesn’t go very deep. Far more egregious and problematic is a plot that develops in the second half of the picture in which Nurse Alice Jones (Marie Ward) is accidentally outed to her traditionalist boss, Dr. Spencer Harlow (Paulino Nunes). Established as the judgmental, Nurse Ratched of the study, the screenplay uses the experience as an avenue for Alice to gallingly equate homophobia with the apparent persecution and prejudices faced by stoners, and come to a more compassionate view of who they are. It’s an appalling and sour line to draw, creating an equivalency that undermines that very threat to their very lives that queer people faced then, and still face today. It’s astonishing that no one involved in the production gave that beat a second thought.
Then again, many things in the film don’t seem to have been too fussed over. “The Marijuana Conspiracy” is mostly successful at fabricating a ‘70s vibe with its production and costume design. However, the cracks are easy to see, whether it’s a poster for Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool in a record store, or the cast unconsciously switching from the heavy-handed, awkward Austin Powers-y have a shag/that’s bogus/do you have any bread/what’s the skinny dialogue to accidentally changing their cadence to something more contemporary, you know, like, this. Not helping matters in keeping a disconnect from the film’s aesthetic is cinematographer John Berrie, who shares with Pryce an extensive background in television which is very much on display here, with every shot seemingly lit and framed for the eventuality that it will be watched on what will likely be its true destination: cropped on an old, square TV in a Canadian cottage, playing late one night on cable.
No one wants to be the sober person at a party where everybody is high, but that’s often what “The Marijuana Conspiracy” feels like. As the film wraps up, it trots out the real women who suffered from the experiment on camera and shares how their lives played out following their participation in the study. It then brings everything full circle, with footage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing the legalization of weed in Canada. It’s then you realize that the film is actually a Heritage Minute commercial, played out to an agonizing feature-length format. [D]
“The Marijuana Conspiracy” arrives on April, uh, 4/20…naturally.