Taylor Olson as Gideon
Taylor Olson’s third feature film What We Dreamed of Then premiered at the Atlantic International Film Festival on September 12th, 2025 at Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane. This film was written and directed by Olson and in it he plays the main protagonist, Gideon, a loving father and partner who becomes isolated from his family just on the cusp of the first Covid-19 lockdowns, and ends up becoming unhoused and harbouring this painful and difficult secret as his life begins to spiral out of control.
Set in New Brunswick, where most of it was also filmed, What We Dreamed Of Then follows the journey of Gideon going both further ahead in time as he tries to survive in Saint John as an unhoused person amid the early months of the pandemic, and also going backwards in time so we see the events unfold that have culminated in this watershed moment for them.
Gideon works as a swim coach and they are exuberant, fun, silly, and have a beautiful ease relating to all their students. We see this ease and magnetism intensify with their own daughter, Faith (played by River Price-Maenpaa), with whom they have a very close relationship. His gregarious and playful personality makes him Faith’s hero, but this is complicated by the fact that he has recently separated from her mother, Kya (played by Christie Burke), who sees him as impulsive and financially irresponsible. Indeed, Kya comes across as stressed and dour in comparison, but we understand that this comes from having to shoulder much of the adult responsibilities and practicalities of having a child. I was reminded of that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) where Miranda (Sally Field) comes home from work with a small cake and some presents for Christopher (Matthew Lawrence)’s birthday only to find that her husband Daniel (Robin Williams) has turned the house into a literal petting zoo. Unlike with Daniel and Miranda, however, Gideon tries his best to centre his love for Kya as he parents Faith on weekends and via FaceTime calls, encouraging Faith to respect her mother’s rules and to have compassion for how hard she works to provide a stable home for her.
As Gideon’s own financial situation deteriorates this further isolates him from Faith, as he won’t tell Kya, Faith, or Kya’s disapproving parents (Martha Irving and Mark A. Owen) about the fact that he has lost the apartment where they used to live- even after offering to do harrowing extra jobs for their landlord (Hugh Thompson). He begins to live a sort of secret double life- on the one hand continuing to work at the swim club until it is shut down during the lockdowns, while also living out of his van and having to jump through dehumanizing hoops just to go to the bathroom. We see very clearly how desperation prompts Gideon to do things that would have ordinarily never crossed his mind, and also how he becomes more and more invisible and expendable to society as he slips through their cracks. Especially within the backdrop of the pandemic we also see him completely disappear from the social circles that once held him. He does make a new friend, Navleen, played by Parveen Kaur, who is also living in her car, but we are able to vividly see the challenges of really connecting with someone under these circumstances.
The performances in this film are gorgeous. Olson creates a really loveable, goofy, and flawed person in Gideon, who is pushed to his breaking point under tremendous stress, and responds in ways that are heartbreaking and human. Christie Burke is a poignant counterpoint to Olson, someone who is much more repressed and stoic, but whose devastation is just as clear in the lost and frightened way she navigates around their attempts to co-parent. River Price-Maenpaa reminded me a little bit of Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine (2006); she oscillates between being able to let go and be carefree with her dad, and struggling with the sudden drastic changes in her reality and feeling overwhelmed, angry, and hurt. The way all these dynamics play out feels very grounded in the reality of a nine year old. The relationship between Gideon and Navleen is interesting because while Parveen Kaur plays her as distant and suspicious, as you can imagine anyone might be navigating the streets alone as a young woman, she also manages to bring out a side of Gideon that we haven’t seen before.
There is a great score comprised of many local artists including Classified, Quake Matthews, and a recurring theme from T. Thomason. Gideon uses music, as many of us do, to pump themself up when they need to do hard things, and the music choices really root the story in this time and this region.
Olson doesn’t try to give Gideon’s story an easy fix because in reality there is so rarely one easy fix. The audience is left, I think, thinking even more about the people who still live in the real tent encampments in our communities than the fictional people whose story we have just been immersed in. Gideon is not, as some folks might believe, the exception in this scenario. Every unhoused person has a story that is worth hearing, worth knowing and understanding, and receiving with compassion and empathy. What We Dreamed Of Then encourages us to keep those on the margins of our cities and our towns visible in ways that are kind, humanizing, and can hopefully lead to the systemic change needed to make a real difference and fix the cracks in our society. This is a powerful and heart-rending film from one of Halifax’s most prolific and celebrated filmmakers.
You can stream Taylor Olson’s What We Dreamed Of Then from home as part of the Virtual Festival at AIFF. Access costs $10.00, for more information please visit this website. The film was produced by Stephen Francis Foster, Britt Kerr, and Sandy Hunter.
The Atlantic International Film Festival continues in Halifax until September 17th, bringing over one hundred films from Halifax, Canada, and around the world, to local audiences. There are also free panels and other special events happening in venues around the city. For more information please visit this website.
