Canvas Pictures Llc.

NEW YORK -- Although the subject of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, has not exactly been ignored in the cinema, director-screenwriter Joseph Greco's "Canvas" offers an unusually sensitive take on the subject. This autobiographical tale of a 10-year-old boy coping with his mother's severe illness boasts terrific performances from its three leads -- Joe Pantoliano, Marcia Gay Harden and young Devon Gearhart -- and well deserves exposure beyond the festival circuit. It recently was featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, where it won awards for both the filmmaker and Pantoliano.

Pantoliano plays John, a construction worker coping with looming unemployment and the illness of his wife, Mary (Harden), whose paranoia and delusions are becoming increasingly disruptive. Particularly affected is their son Chris (Gearhart), who finds himself the object of ridicule at school because of his mother's behavior.

Both father and son find solace amid their difficulties via eccentric creative pursuits. Chris finds himself crafting homemade patched shirts for his classmates, including one young girl on whom he has a crush, that are modeled after one made by his mother in the throes of her illness. John decides to build a large sailboat in the driveway, in the hope of one day taking his wife on the sailing trip he's long promised her.

The film compensates for its sketchy narrative and some heavy-handed symbolic elements with its realistic depiction of the wife's affliction and the emotional effects it has on her bereft family members. Harden delivers a typically detailed, incisive portrayal that well conveys her character's anguished awareness of her condition, while an unusually restrained Pantoliano delivers a moving turn as the loving husband.