Harkness, the namesake of Maria Markina’s documentary feature debut, talks about his time during acid, discovering music as art as a child of a fellow musician. From then, he goes to London and then to his parents’ basement in a Toronto suburb where for twenty years, he writes his music.

Now that he has enough music for an album, he needs to do the grunt work so people will buy or stream it. Part of that involves hiring a public relations person who gets him interviews in magazines. He’s on MTV and yet he’s also performing to crowds that dissuade him from pursuing his dream which is always going to be an uphill climb.

Let’s start with this documentary’s good parts, because 70% of this film is actually pretty interesting to me, and this is speaking as someone who generally has nothing but contempt for musicians.

The jump off point here is that it’s reminiscent of every behind the scenes music documentary. It’s weird to see a PR person on screen, especially when Harkness asks her for a favour. That favour is him asking her to clean the toilet of a music venue, which is so ‘Gen X’ of him, but granted it’s a music venue, of course the bathrooms are not going to be clean, but we can’t really argue with his priorities either.

There are going to be gaps on how interesting Harkness actually is even if yes, the music industry is inherently interesting.

Harkness watches himself on MTV, his lo-fi music video playing after Dua Lipa’s just came on, but watching him do push ups (and not even doing them properly) does not, sadly, a documentary make.

Also let’s get this straight; he can find the time to shit on the Spice Girls and moves back to Ontario while he makes his mom do arts and crafts and merch work while making his long-awaited album. Two decades of supposedly hard work and being the subject of a documentary that doesn’t make him look much better then 2000’s era Sloan can occasionally make for some rough and even awkward viewing.

Harkness, both the film and the musician, are firmly installed on the struggle bus. He has his share of Instagram fans but as he goes on tour, the crowds get thinner and the angst is real.

What saves this documentary, though, is that both Markina and Harkness are on the same side during their difficult journeys. Just like most documentaries about musicians, it has its share of interview subjects talking about his struggle. He’s worked hard in music instead of getting a family and a job and both have their downsides and the magic of it all is that we need to remember that’s there’s nothing really wrong with shooting for the moon like he did.  There’s something admirable in just not giving up on the dream, no matter what it is.

After a free public screening at the Royal, Harkness is available to stream on CBC Gem.