“Seagrass” is a low-simmer Canadian drama about a couple in trouble and the therapeutic resort “retreat” they visit to see if this marriage can be saved.

By focusing on a “mixed” marriage between the daughter of Japanese immigrants and a white man, writer-director Meredith Hama-Brown’s 1994 period piece can touch on issues of identity and generational guilt, with a subtext of tacit racism even in that paradise of “nice,” Canada.

We see happy, bubbly siblings impacted by their grandma’s loss, but also by their parents’ distraction, sisters pulled apart by that and their age difference as one starts to feel peer-pressured into “growing up” and growing away from her kid sister.

But like a lot of films about an embattled marriage, counseling and group therapy, Hama-Brown takes sides, just the way movies depict marriage counselors.

Viewers south of the 49th Parallel might not know that Canada, like the United States, treated its Japanese residents and citizens as being of suspect loyalty during World War II, and forcibly removed them from British Columbia on Canada’s West Coast.

That comes up as a shortcoming in the memories of Judith (Ally Maki of TV’s “Wrecked” and “Cloak and Dagger”) as she struggles with the recent death of her mother and takes stock of her state of happiness.

Whatever face she shows daughters Stephanie (Nyha Huang Breitkreuz) and younger Emmy (Remy Marthaller), the viewer easily picks up on Judith’s sadness. Now she and husband Steve (Luke Roberts of TV’s “Black Sails” and “Ransom”) are taking the whole family to a seaside cabin-camp for a vacation wheere the kids will be supervised (barely) while the adults attend sessions and workshops.

“Something isn’t quite going as planned,” Steve tells their group therapy counselor. So he’s doing what Judith suggested they do and sought help. Judith doesn’t speak in therapy.

Whatever’s going on with the couple is understated, but the presence of childless repeat-visitors at the resort, its biggest fans (Sarah Gadon and Chris Pang), is a fresh stress on their marriage, right from the start.

She is white, childless and “too vain to get stretch marks,” and a bit over-curious and triggering in her chats with Judith. And Judith adds a little smile and flirtatious giggle to the attentions of the Aussie-accented Asian bro husband Pat, who likes to show off his new Jag and brag about vacations they’ve taken, even if he doesn’t know that Machu Picchu was built by the Incans, not the “Aztecs.”

Pat also heritage-shames Judith for not speaking Japanese and not even knowing where her parents were interned in the 1940s.

Yes, she has issues and this is adding to them. And Steve is a tad adrift in a touchy-feely, woman-counselor world exploring the “fragile ecosystem” of their marriage. We – or at least male viewers — get a “polar bear” vibe about Steve even before he makes a racist penis size joke. He’s doomed.

Meanwhile, older daughter Stephanie is experiencing peer pressure from boy-obsessed girls and mixed-race racism from other kids there. That distracts her from a big sister’s prime directive — looking after her younger sibling.

In her feature film debut, Hama-Brown gives herself the license to lightly mock the counseling process, partly by making this a period piece and partly by simply letting us sit in on “sharing” and “pillow pounding” sessions.

But the process of dismantling traditional gender roles and the patriarchal structure of marriage had been underway for decades before the Vancouver Canucks staged their first post-Stanley Cup riot.

“Seagrass” can be evocative, with its seaside setting (a place Judith’s parents were banished from). It has a lovely sensitivity to it, and Maki and Roberts make the most of these layered, mostly-internalized starring roles.

Then a tipsy couples night out sees Maki sing karaoke like the actress-and-former-girl-band singer she is — too “good” at it to feel real.

The evening’s blow-ups take a predictable form, and you start to notice that most everything about this story is pre-ordained, and not just because of the obvious forshadowing.

Taking sides is simple human nature and there really aren’t a lot of fresh variations on a tale bent on showing us “Scenes from a Marriage.”

“Seagrass” is psychologically interesting, and touching here and there. But one can’t help but get the feeling our filmmaker never got out of the shallows.

Rating: unrated, adult situations, alcohol abuse, profanity

Cast: Ally Maki, Luke Roberts, Nyha Huang Breitkreuz,
Remy Marthaller, Chris Pang and Sarah Gadon

Credits: Scripted and directed by
Meredith Hama-Brown. A Game Theory release.

Running time: 1:55