Directed by Tasha Hubbard | Written by Hubbard and Emil Sher | 91min | ▲▲1/2

Here’s a well-meaning story based on actual events about a family of indigenous siblings who after 50 years reunite — or, practically, meet for the first time — over a long weekend in Banff. They were separated by the Sixties Scoop, the massively damaging Canadian government policy to take First Nations children away from their birth families and place them with whites. This particular story is based on a documentary by the same filmmaker, Birth of a Family from 2017.

That’s a film I’d like to see, because this dramatic retelling is so deeply conventional in its formal attributes it’s hard to warm up to. Some of these production issues are likely budgetary, but it makes you wonder why they chose to make a film that looks so much like a made-for-cable seasonal movie, with the dramatic notes in the script so predictable.

Despite that, Meadowlarks breaks through to something sincere and true, and that’s because it’s been extraordinarily well cast. The actors lift it with their honesty.

Alex Rice plays Marianne, the sibling who was raised in Belgium, the farthest both geographically and culturally from her blood. She nails a scene at a tourist spot where a First Nations craftsperson, hearing her story, offers her the gift of feathered earrings and she struggles to accept them. As Connie, Carmen Moore is the most nurturing, she’s the one who has brought them all together. She gets a wonderful scene at the Golden Skybridge in BC, where she overcomes her fear of heights with her siblings’ help.  Michelle Thrush is Gwen, the sibling who is perhaps most connected to her Cree culture, but also the most brusk and angry. The great Michael Greyeyes, his character, Anthony, was shuffled between families and carries a lot of hurt, especially about what he has to give to the next generation. And there’s an absent brother, the eldest (Lorne Duquette), who won’t participate in the weekend.

It takes some time, but you will believe these people are related and that their effort to connect, to find a way to metabolize the pain of decades of separation from their culture and each other, is a profound act of healing.