Justine Williamson and Greg Vardy didn’t set out to make a film when they embarked on their Albertan tour as their alter egos Tracy and Martina in February of 2024, but since Tracy and Martina are arguably the two most famous influencers to come out of Cape Breton it seemed like a good idea to bring Brendan Langelle Lyle to create some social media content for them along the way. As the footage began to pile up and Williamson and Vardy decided to spend more of their daytime in Alberta as Tracy and Martina the idea to create a mockumentary of the adventure began to take shape. Tracy & Martina: Goin’ Out West is now playing at Cineplex Bayers Lake in Halifax and in Sydney, and the film will stream on Crave September 1st.
Tracy and Martina have become cultural fixtures and icons around the East Coast over the last ten years popping up at music festivals, hosting events, at the CTV Christmas Daddies telethon, showing off their fashion on the East Coast Music Awards’ red carpets, and, of course, posting viral content on social media and hosting their podcast Shootin’ the Sh!t with Tracy & Martina. In this way their debut feature film feels a bit like Wayne’s World (1992), Coneheads (1993) or Night at the Roxbury (1998), where the audience relishes in watching characters that are already familiar to them in both a larger format and in a longer narrative. Like all their content the film is unscripted, so it feels like the meeting of something like Night at the Roxbury (1998) with a film like Waiting for Guffman (1997), especially because so much of the comedy comes from the characters’ choices, which Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara both talked a lot about in relation to both the films they made with Christopher Guest and their work on Schitt’s Creek. Tracy and Martina aren’t put into a zany comedic situation- in fact there is much stress and conflict during their relatively commonplace trek from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Fort McMurray, Alberta, but the comedy comes from the very specific ways that these two characters respond moment by moment to leaving their home province for the very first time and trying to acclimatize themselves to life on tour.
Tracy and Martina are best friends of indeterminate age. Tracy is from Glace Bay and Martina is from New Waterford, which plays an important role in the film, and they have known each other most of their lives. Martina got married young and has since gotten divorced, and she has two young adult children. Tracy has a very sweet relationship with her grandfather, Poppy, and Martina has a bit of a codependent relationship with her mother, and Tracy is raising ferrets that like to burrow in the open insulation in her basement. While they are undoubtedly local celebrities in Glace Bay and New Waterford, and they have an impressive social media following they haven’t made a lot of money from being influencers, and Tracy especially is a bit desperate to turn her love of attention into a lucrative full-time career. It is out of this context that the two of them decide to book some live shows in Alberta- Fort McMurray, Edmonton, and Calgary, in attempt to broaden their market and make some more money. After all, where else can you find more Cape Bretoners per capita than in Nova Scotia but in Alberta, right?
The problem is that neither of them have ever left Nova Scotia before, and they don’t have any money. They have had their plane fare to Alberta paid for as they are going to be opening for a local band, but they have to find their own accommodations, pay for their flights home, and pay for any other expenses that crop up along the way. Tracy, for example, is adamant that they have to go to the West Edmonton Mall while they’re there. When their initial accommodation plans fall through their relationship is tested in a high pressure cooker situation that actually made me feel anxious watching them.
Tracy and Martina, as characters, descend from decades’ worth of characters created by Cape Bretoners that parody- with love- Cape Breton’s unique heritages and cultures- dating back to the Rise and Follies of Cape Breton and the earliest days of the Cape Breton Summertime Revue. Heather Rankin’s character Shirley Campbell, for example, could be one of Tracy or Martina’s cousins. Tracy and Martina are firmly rooted in their home communities of Glace Bay and New Waterford, and so much of the comedy comes from the specific experiences of growing up in rural Nova Scotia, in Cape Breton specifically, and in communities that are so rooted in the history of the coal mines. There is a moment in the film where Tracy, who is spiralling with self-doubt, says that she can’t tell if the audiences in Alberta are laughing with them or laughing at them. As a Haligonian I feel like it is always important to make this distinction, because it is one thing to poke fun at your own community, and quite another for someone from the biggest city in the region to do the same. In many ways Tracy and Martina, similar to Bette MacDonald and Maynard Morrison, are interested in putting Cape Breton’s funniest foot forward. They don’t necessarily offer outsiders the most realistic portrait of what people from the island are like- but they delight in showing off the kinds of characters that do exist and make the island the most memorable. I think East Coasters now are proud of how funny these portraits, coming from all over the region, can be, whether it’s exactly our own experience or just adjacent. Tracy and Martina as people don’t necessarily represent the best of us, but we are still overjoyed to have them go out to other parts of the country as our representative because that’s hilarious- whether or not the rest of Canada is in on the joke.
Yet, at the same time I found Tracy & Martina: Goin’ Out West to be more heartrending than I was expecting. Justine Williamson’s portrayal of Tracy’s emotional state as a deeply insecure, self-sabotaging, mood swinging young woman with a good heart, but likely with untreated ADHD and unstable self worth that masquerades as narcissism is so realistic it’s harrowing. Vardy’s Martina, who has her own issues, does a beautiful job of oscillating between trying to manage Tracy’s mood, and being, of course, dramatically affected by it herself. The fact that Williamson especially is able to make Tracy both so funny as a caricature, but also so heartbreaking as a human is really impressive. It is also incredible when you remind yourself that these scenes are unscripted, and both Williamson and Vardy are able to instinctively conjure up these very nuanced reactions in their characters’ voices at will.
In keeping with the mockumentary style of the film Lyle uses a handheld camera style, as though Tracy and Martina have a friend along with them who has limited filming experience. Sometimes the camera is blurry, and sometimes, like when Tracy and Martina are running down a staircase at one of the performance venues, the camera is shakily and quickly following them- so much so that it made me feel a moment of motion sickness, which I think adds to the film’s ability to make you feel immersed in Tracy and Martina’s world. Except for the camerawork Vardy and Williamson have done most of the heavy lifting for the film themselves- including styling their characters’ wardrobe, wigs, and makeup- which is a wonder in itself.
The choice of integrating some Ria Mia and Rankin Family music into the film as well really adds a beautifully specific shade to the world that they are both creating and honouring.
Several times when I have listened to their podcast I have thought to myself that somewhere beyond our shores someone is listening thinking that Tracy and Martina are real people and that whatever absurdly ridiculous fictional thing they’re talking about really happened. Yet, even for those of us who know that under the outlandish clothes and the piles of makeup are Greg and Justine, Tracy and Martina do feel so real in this film; it’s very easy to buy into them and their adventure, to feel invested in their friendship, and to genuinely care about their wellbeing- even when they’re behaving like fucking lunatics… especially when they’re behaving like fucking lunatics.
Tracy & Martina Goin’ Out West plays at Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre in Halifax and Cineplex Cinemas in Sydney until June 18th. You can stream the film on Crave starting September 1st, 2026. You can listen to a recent interview with Tracy and Martina on Jann Arden’s podcast
Tracy and Martina have live shows coming up- starting with Montréal on July 25th, 2026 and ending up in Charlottetown on November 26th. Other East Coast dates on the tour are Saint John, New Brunswick on September 25, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on September 26, Fredericton, New Brunswick on October 29th, and Moncton, New Brunswick on October 30th. Please visit this website for full details.
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