AllMovie

The despair of Canada's native community in the 21st century dovetails with a story of mystery and murder in this moody drama from filmmaker Carl Bessai. Rebecca (Carmen Moore) is a woman in her early thirties of aboriginal heritage living in the rough and tumble East Side of Vancouver, where crime, drugs, and prostitution are common and many native Canadians have become caught in a downward spiral of self-destruction. Rebecca also looks after her ailing father, and shortly before he dies, he shares some startling news with her -- Rebecca's mother Rita (Tantoo Cardinal), who she has long thought to be dead, is actually still alive and living in Vancouver. Rebecca desperately wants to reconnect with Rita, but she begins to scour the East Side in search of her mom at a very dangerous time. Norman (Callum Keith Rennie) is a psychotic killer obsessed with aboriginal women who has been prowling the East Side looking for victims, and as Rebecca looks for Rita she unwittingly puts herself in the fiend's path. Based on an acclaimed stage play by Marie Clements (who also wrote the film's screenplay), Unnatural and Accidental received its world premier at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.