The Steps

As The Steps opens, we meet failed investment banker Jeff (Jason Ritter) and his party-animal sister Marla (Emmanuelle Chriqui), New Yorkers who've been invited by their publishing-magnate father, Ed (James Brolin), to visit his cottage in Northern Ontario. They're infuriated, terrified and appalled — to them, Canada is even a bigger wasteland than Wyoming. Since their father married Sherry (Christine Lahti), a woman with a chequered past and children by three different men, they've been worried they may never see any of their father's fortune. Jeff and Marla head for Georgian Bay and find that things are worse than anticipated. Sherry's crew of offspring would have to step up their game seriously just to reach the "motley" level. Keith (Steven McCarthy) is an unemployed musician who was kicked out of the emerging band and he was in; Samir (Vinay Virmani) is a pot dealer and full-time stoner; and though eldest son David (Benjamin Arthur) may have the second-largest paintball field in all of Ontario, he also seems to have fairly serious rage issues. And now Sherry and Ed are planning on a few changes to their family that may leave Jeff and Marla out in the cold. (Toronto International Film Festival)