I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) on Netflix
Polly Vandersma takes things literally and lands a secretarial job at Gabrielle St. Peres's art gallery. She photographs as a hobby and admires Gabrielle, until the painter Mary Joseph returns.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.7/102,149 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Polly Vandersma works for a temporary secretarial agency and lives alone. Clumsy, socially awkward, without much education, and inclined to take others' statements literally, she has had few job offers, and in her free time she takes solitary bicycle rides to photograph. The agency places her in Gabrielle St. Peres's private art gallery; Polly admires Gabrielle's artistic ability and falls a little in love with her. Mary Joseph, a younger painter and Gabrielle's former lover, returns after an absence, and the two rekindle their relationship despite Gabrielle's worries about the age difference. Polly becomes jealous, and she anonymously submits photographs of her own to the gallery.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Ontario Film Development Corporation's legal affairs officer Jonathon Barker opposed funding I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, calling it "a piece of shit that would never do anything", and the OFDC's report recommended refusing the film; Debbie Nightingale overrode them and raised the investment to $100,000.
- Directors' Fortnight programmer Pierre-Henri Deleau refused to preview the film because he mistakenly believed it ran three hours; a technician found it was under 90 minutes, so Deleau watched it, liked it and invited Patricia Rozema to Cannes.
- Singer-songwriter Jane Siberry was set to provide the voicings of the mermaids, but she had a cold on the day the recordings were scheduled, so her backing vocalist Rebecca Jenkins substituted instead.
- Polly's fantasy flying scene, one of the film's whimsical fantasy sequences, was accomplished with a special effect that cost $60.
- I've Heard the Mermaids Singing was the first English-language Canadian feature film to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
- In 1993, the Toronto International Film Festival ranked I've Heard the Mermaids Singing ninth on its Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time list, making Patricia Rozema the first female director to have a film on it.
