Catherine Nyland is an archaeologist specializing in swamps. She's teaching at a Toronto university while suffering from a terminal illness of which excruciating migraines are the most obvious symptom, and she aches for the chance to examine a body from an aboriginal bog in the Canada's North.

Naturally these two get a chance to confront their destinies together in this feel-bad Canadian movie by Robert Budreau, who wrote, directed and produced (a triple threat that's usually a bad omen). Roy Dupuis and Jane McGregor play the leads, two dour characters first introduced in A.W. Plumstead's novel "Loon."

The cop seeking psychological help and the archaeologist seeking a cure for what ails her get their meet-cute, so to speak, when a body is discovered in a watery bog on Adams' turf. There has been a recent missing person's report, but this body seems eerily preserved, so the call goes out for an expert in such things. Nyland drops everything and catches the first train, knowing that the bog is thought to be an age-old sacred healing place for the local native band.

Budreau demonstrates the basic chops to be a filmmaker (hiring a good cinematographer, for a start), but unless you've been chafing to see Plumstead's novel turned into a movie you're in for a dreary time. With both characters nursing wounds either real or abstract, there's not much for the actors to do. Adams spends most of his time brooding, praying or smoking. Nyland, when not painstakingly examining the mysterious remains in the town hospital's morgue, prefers to jog until she throws up, which is not a function of being out of shape but rather an indication that her headaches are literally killing her. The northern locations are a boon; they at least give us something still and barren to watch between the scenes of tense non-communication between Adams and Nyland.

Earnest and depressing, with dollops of native mumbo-jumbo ostensibly adding dignity to the proceedings, That Beautiful Somewhere is the perfect gift to those who want their movies home-grown, whatever the cost.