Endless Cookie review – Cheech and Chong meet Tristram Shandy in trippy tales of First Nations life

An animator records the shaggy dog stories of his Indigenous brother in a loopy, hallucinatory animation

The call for better self-representation for minorities in cinema has been loud and long over the last decade, and if it means more left-field work like this loopy, brain-fried but thoroughly affable animation about the lives of a Canadian Cree Indigenous family, then keep it coming. Roughly describable as Cheech and Chong meet Tristram Shandy, Endless Cookie consistently interrupts itself and lampoons the methods of its own creation – especially the fact it took half-brothers Seth and Peter Scriver nine years to finish the thing. At one point Seth, in the post-apocalyptic ruins of Toronto, announces he has another deadline extension: “Cool!”

Animator Seth (who voices himself) heads up to the Shamattawa First Nation community in Manitoba to tape his half-brother Peter (also voicing himself, as do other family members); Peter’s mother, unlike Seth’s, was First Nations. His tales are of the shaggy-dog variety – featuring the 12 pooches on their property, two of whom actually are called Cheech and Chong – as well as the seven kids in residence. The stories are manifold and strange: teepee construction; a botched murder stakeout involving a caribou; Peter’s angry-punk stint in 80s Toronto; a friend accosted by a clingy snowy owl; a drawn-out saga about the embarrassment of mangling his hand in his own animal trap.