Life has its good moments. Camilo (Jorge Martinez Colorado) works as a nighttime maintenance worker and he sits down and watches as his younger coworkers dance while mopping a basketball court. A Mexican-Canadian, he tried to get a restaurant a decade before the film’s present day, but that restaurant folded for a few reasons. During the present day, he juggles his current job while interviewing for chef jobs all over Quebec. He gets one hundreds of miles away from Montreal, his home base, but alas, his daughter (Eva Avila) tells him that she needs to return to rehab, and she can’t do rehab while leaving her son (Enzo Desmeules Saint-Hilaire) home. Camilo needs to choose between career or family, because both will break his resolve.

Katherine Jerkovic’s Coyote is different from her previous work Roads to February in that the visuals are more raw and that there are more stakes to this story. The film chooses minimalistic storytelling. The actors carry the emotional weight of the film, but there’s always something good about a little bit of cinematic manipulation. A push, a score, something extra but not too much. But let’s return to the actors. I’d like to specifically point out Avila for keeping true to Jerkovic’s script in giving dignity to characters with addiction issues. The same goes for Martinez Colorado, one of the actors here who flesh out the immigrant experience. He says yes to everyone, something we all have to do, even if he sacrifices himself.