Student debt. Cue the losing jingle from The Price is Right. It’s an issue that most of us face, one that induces anxiety and panic. What’s most unfortunate is that it has become accepted, not so much that we enjoy having it, but that it is almost required for most students who wish to explore a post-secondary education. Ask any student on campus and the vast majority will be able to give you a number, the albatross that hangs around their neck due to their wishes to enroll in university.

In fact, ask any student in North America and you’ll find that they’re all carrying the same burden. The numbers may vary, but debt is debt. Money owed is money owed. To reiterate one of my favourite lines from 1984’s The Terminator (with some adjustments): “Listen and understand. [Student debt] can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned it. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear.

And it absolutely will not stop [charging you interest], ever, until you are dead”. A little dramatic, but you get the idea. Financial Judgment Day is inevitable for many students.

Filmmaker and documentarian Mike Johnston also feels the Terminator on his tail. Back in 2003, the Trent alumnus, hoping to find a means of paying off his own student debt, made a documentary about this ubiquitous issue entitled My Sudent Loan (2003). At the time the film was made, Trent students had borrowed a combined total of $54 million. What’s presented is a down-to-earth approach to the documentary format that accommodates most viewers with a humorous take on a serious topic.

Johnston, the writer, director, and editor, centers himself in the film as an example to the issue at hand. Never does it come across as self-absorbed or pretentious, as Johnston’s everyman personality shines through with his dry wit and amusingly Canadian sensibilities. Where some documentaries falter in wielding a sense of superiority over its audience, My Student Loan feels like a conversation with the small-town friend that you grew up with.

It’s hard not to be charmed by him and the hockey stick that he’s taped his microphone to.

One of the film’s many positives, despite its lean runtime of 42 minutes, is the diversity of interviewees. From one of the school’s groundkeepers to local politicians, it’s obvious that Johnston took a concerted effort to create a documentary that allowed everyone to have their say, without trying to cram his own agenda down viewer’s throats. For a first-time filmmaker, it’s a revelation that not only shows maturity, but his ability to see the bigger picture.

Some of the film’s most enjoyable moments are Johnston’s phone calls with the collection agencies who are hassling him to repay his debts. In one instance, Johnston, with his layman charm, asks the female operator who is encouraging him to pay up if she has any student debts herself. Not only does she confirm that she does, but mentions she has yet to pay them off.

In another call, one operator has the gall to suggest that Johnston take a loan from the bank or his parents to pay off his debt, thus asking him to incur more debt in the process.

One of the only missteps in My Student Loan is the deviation in the film’s focus. In the hopes of connecting the two topics, Johnston also sheds light on Bonnie Patterson’s controversial direction with Trent University at the time, and while his coverage is in-depth and interesting, he fails to draw the two ideas together. It feels more like a distraction than a useful addition.

Overall, My Student Loan is a documentary for all. Johnston’s low budget sensibilities add a lot of fun to the mix. Rather than utilizing flashy diagrams to show the rise of student loans, he walks through the snow with snowshoes to draw the graph that reveals an exponential increase. Not only does it get the communication across, but it does so with wit in tow.

The film succeeds in many instances by approaching a serious topic without taking itself too seriously and creates a viewing environment that does everything but alienate, which many documentaries wish they could accomplish.

We all face student debt. It stares at us from the horizon, rising more and more each day until it has fully illuminated the skies of our futures, demanding a sacrifice in a monetary pound of flesh. There’s no way that we can enjoy such a process, but My Student Loan certainly helps us laugh in the face of danger.