With Fat Chance (2021), Toronto filmmaker Stephen Broomer invites us into a space where cinema feels less like storytelling and more like holding a fading memory up to the light. Known for his dedication to 16mm film and analog experimentation, Broomer crafts work that hovers somewhere between visual poem and historical excavation—and Fat Chance is no exception.

At the heart of the film is Laird Cregar, a 1940s character actor whose life was marked by both acclaim and personal tragedy. Best known for his brooding performances and dramatic weight loss that ultimately led to his death at just 31, Cregar becomes both subject and specter in Broomer’s hands. Using heavily manipulated footage from Cregar’s final two films (The Lodger and Hangover Square), Fat Chance unspools as a meditation on image, identity, and disappearance.

Broomer doesn’t just present Cregar—he distorts him. Frames are overexposed, scratched, chemically altered. The film stock seems to collapse in on itself, as if mirroring Cregar’s own self-destruction. Light flares become emotional ruptures. Visual noise becomes narrative punctuation. What remains is both beautiful and unsettling—a cinematic ghost that flickers just out of reach.

Adding another layer is the film’s soundscape, composed by Stuart Broomer (Stephen’s father). The score blends orchestral swells with ghostlike echoes of archival audio, building a slow, ritualistic atmosphere. It’s as though the soundtrack itself is sifting through the past, searching for a voice that refuses to fully return.

Fat Chance sits at an interesting crossroads: part biography, part experimental cinema, part material study of film decay. With a background in both visual art and film restoration, Broomer approaches each frame as both image and artifact. This focus on imperfection and physicality runs through his broader body of work—whether in essay films or archive-based projects, he’s consistently drawn to the fragile, the overlooked, and the almost-lost.

Broomer’s films ask for a different kind of attention—one that embraces ambiguity, listens for what’s missing, and finds beauty in deterioration. Fat Chance doesn’t wrap its themes in closure or resolution. Instead, it lingers like a half-remembered confession, suspended between presence and absence.

For more on his beautifully fractured approach to filmmaking, you can explore: www.stephenbroomer.com.