Movie Review: Run This Town

Run This Town ** / *****

Directed by: Ricky Tollman.

Written by: Ricky Tollman.

Starring: Ben Platt (Bram), Mena Massoud (Kamal), Damian Lewis (Rob), Nina Dobrev (Ashley), Scott Speedman (David), Jennifer Ehle (Judith), Gil Bellows (Detective Lowey), Lauren Collins (Sammi), David Eisner (Phil), Hamza Haq (Detective Sharma), Kathryn Greenwood (Jill), Emmanuel Kabongo (Abe), Rebecca Liddiard (Claire), Araya Mengesha (Joshua), Katy Breier (Lauren), Seamus Patterson (Zach), Setta Keshishian (Gidda).

 

When telling an infamous, true life story, there are always multiple different approaches you can take – making the story we know front and centre, approaching for the side, having it be background noise, etc. As long the narrative you are telling works, then the approach does not really matter. Yet, how the filmmakers behind Run This Town decided to tackle the Rob Ford crack smoking tape scandal, and turn it into a treatise on millennial entitlement is a complete and total mystery. Worse, it’s not even a good treatise on millennial entitlement. Then you throw Damian Lewis in a fat suit/makeup so unconvincing that you think it must be a joke doing an accent that doesn’t sound like, well, anyone and Run This Town ends up pretty much being a train wreck of a movie. One that is entertaining in fits and starts – and has an interesting idea thrown in once in a while to keep things interesting.

 

The story of Rob Ford as Toronto’s Mayor is a fascinating one – a populist in the Trump mold before Trump was a politician, Ford deeply divided Torontonians in terms of his popularity. There were always sketchy things about his past and his alcoholism wasn’t really a secret. The existence of a crack tape – which is exactly what you think it is, Rob Ford, sitting around with some young men smoking crack, was rumored before it was seen – and when it finally did break – courtesy of a Toronto Star reporter named Robyn Doolittle, it made Ford into an international laughingstock – and ended his career. He died not long after leaving office.

 

Writer/director Ricky Tollman, strangely, decides to tell this story through the lens of two, fictional millennial men. The first is Bram (Ben Platt) – a child of privilege, graduated from University, but still living at home, who gets a job at a news site and wants to be a real reporter – but is basically assigned to write listicles. The one other job at the paper he has is trying to construct Ford’s schedule – which his staff has stopped giving reporters – out of the information he has, This leads him to getting the lead on the crack tape – it basically falls into his lap. And he screws it up. The other major character is Kamal (Mena Massoud), the young “Special Assistant” to Rob Ford, whose job it is to basically lie to the press, and run interference on all of Ford’s many (many) scandals – protecting his boss, who is nice to his face, but whose supporters feed off his dog whistle language to attack people like Kamal. The major subplot involves Ashley (Nina Dobrev), a young lawyer/PR person on Ford’s staff, who he harasses in front of everyone – and is angry that no one else seems to notice or care.

 

It is strange that a scandal broken by a Toronto newspaper, by a competent female reporter, who end up being a story pursued at another paper by an incompetent male reporter. Having said that, I don’t think Tollman is really trying to diminish what Doolittle did – she isn’t featured in the movie, but her work is – as Bram finds himself constantly scooped on what he thinks of as “his” story – basically because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s odd though that instead of focusing on a character like Doolittle, we have Kamel. I kind of understand the point here. Kamal is the opposite of Bram is many ways – someone who doesn’t have the same advantages, who has had to earn his way up through the ranks, and is good at his job. Yet, by the end, he’s in essentially the same spot as Bram – but worse, since he doesn’t have his family money to fall back on. The movie is trying to show these different aspects of being a millennial – the perilous economic uncertainty, etc. – but it doesn’t really do it much better than we’ve seen elsewhere, and it’s an odd choice of story to use as a jumping off point.

 

Now the elephant in the room – and that’s Damian Lewis as Ford himself. The movie probably would have been better making one of two other decisions – the first being doing what Kitty Green did in The Assistant with her Weinstein-inspired character, and never showing him at all – have him be a absent presence, or the other really making him a full character. They don’t really do either here. Lewis is essentially playing a cartoon character here – the fat suit, and accompanying makeup, look ridiculous, his accent sounds nothing like Ford’s – or any Canadian’s really. And he attempts to play Ford basically as a pathetic, almost comical character – but one who can turn in an instant into an angry, violent man. But he doesn’t pull it off – or really come close. The movie makes some interesting decisions on when to deploy Ford in the film as well – so for instance, we do see his harassment of Ashley, and the infamous press conference moment of “I have more than enough to eat at home” – but we don’t see the crack tape at all. It’s an oddly disjointed character in a film that doesn’t really seem all that interested in Ford at all.

 

I remain convinced that a movie about Rob Ford could be great – hell, he was an interesting enough presence that you could make several, with different tones, different perspectives, and they would probably all work. It just kind of seems likes Tollman and company found one of the only ways to not make this story work.

Classic Movie Review: The Demons (2015)

The Demons (2015)

Directed by: Philippe Lesage.

Written by: Philippe Lesage.

Starring: Edouard Tremblay-Grenier (Felix), Pier-Luc Funk (Ben), Vassili Schneider (Francois), Sarah Motter (Emmanuelle), Laurent Lucas (Marc), Pascale Bussieres (Claire), Victoria Diamond (Rebecca), Yannick Gobeil-Dugas (Mathieu), Alfred Poirier (Alexandre), Mathis Thomas (Patrick), Theodore Pellerin (David), Benedicte Decary (Nicole), Rose-Marie Perreault (Stephanie), Milya Corbeil-Gauvreau (Sophie), Jean-Luc Terriault (Max), Samuel Hurtubise (Samuel), Philippe Lesage (Professeur), Samuel Desjardins (Denis Morissette).

 

Childhood can be a terrifying time for many kids – kids who feel out-of-place and uneasy everywhere. They only half understand the adult world which this witness through their parents, which both fascinates and scares them. They only half understand themselves – their own feelings, which often can be confusing to them – which just adds to that unease. Just getting through the days can be scary – and that’s just in your own mind, your own skin. What of the dangers that lurk outside in the world?

 

Few films have captured this unease as brilliantly as Philippe Lesage’s remarkable debut feature The Demons. When the film came out in 2015, it was mostly slept on outside of Festival audiences, and its native Quebec – even I barely heard of it here in Ontario, and I missed it and didn’t give it much attention until I caught up with Lesage’s equally remarkable follow-up Genesis, which reveals itself to be a quasi-sequel to The Demons only in the last 30 minutes of its runtime (it stands on its own, even if you haven’t seen this film). Now having seen them both, I can say that Genesis feels like a step forward for Lesage – moving more towards his own style more than The Demons – which does have its own style, but is more obviously inspired by Michael Haneke than Genesis was. But as a film unto itself, I think The Demons is even better.

 

The film focuses – at least in its first half – on Felix (Edouard Tremblay-Grenier), who is about 10 years old, and confused and scared about just about everything. His parents marriage is falling apart – he witnesses a terrifying fight between his parents, and even his older siblings get involved, just trying to calm everything down. A different type of confusion comes from his feelings for Rebecca (Victoria Diamond) – his swim teacher, from whom he has a crush on, but doesn’t have the words to express it, or the emotional maturity to understand it. The further complicate his budding sexuality, he thinks he may be gay – which leads, after a school project by another girl, to worry that he has AIDS. He also listens to his older brother and his friends – which adds to the fear and confusion – their casual homophobic remarks make Felix sink deeper into his own confused sexual awakening, keeping it to himself – and their talk about a series of kidnappings of young boys like himself scare him even though he cannot be sure if he’s listening to urban legend, or reality. His older siblings are supportive – but realtively clueless to really help him.

 

For the first hour, Lesage masterfully builds the tension – quietly, subtly. Much of the action is centered at the local pool where Felix swims with his friends. That pool represents so much – from freedom and fun, to his confused sexuality, and even cruelty. Wanting to fit in with another friend, he locks the smaller, weaker Alexandre – a boy we’ve already seen Felix take advantage of in exploring his possible homosexuality (in the way 10-years old can do) – into a locker and won’t let him out. It’s at the pool where we also first meet Ben (Pier-Luc Funk) – who will become the focus for much of the second half of the movie. Ben is a fun and personable guy – in his late teens probably – and the kids at the pool like him. We start to have suspicions about him though when he finds a discarded pair of boys underwear – and doesn’t do with them what we think he should. Ben is the focus on the at times nearly impossible to watch (but equally impossible to turn away from) second half – when Felix’s childhood fears are proven to be real – even if he doesn’t know it.

 

The Demons is a masterfully directed film – it builds the tension slowly, with long, interrupted takes, and slow zooms to reveal what we’re looking at. It’s the type of film where some people will complain that nothing happens – that they are bored by it – and others will be transfixed from its opening to its close. Other may well be turned off by the turn at the halfway mark of the film – that really is difficult to watch, even if it’s never explotive. But for those who get on its wavelength, The Demons is a masterful film – one of the best, and certainly one of the most underrated, debut films of the decade.

Movie Review: A Colony

A Colony *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Geneviève Dulude-De Celles.

Written by: Geneviève Dulude-De Celles.

Starring: Emilie Bierre (Mylia), Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie (Jimmy), Irlande Côté (Camille), Noémie Godin-Vigneau (Nathalie), Cassandra Gosselin-Pelletier (Jacinthe), Robin Aubert (Henri).

 

You would be forgiven for thinking in the early scenes of Une Colonie – the Quebec film from debut filmmaker Geneviève Dulude-De Celles that you are basically in for a French Canadian version of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. Both films focus on a girl roughly the same age, who is shy and awkward, and does what she can to fit in with the rest of her classmates. There are other similarities as well – so comparisons between the two films are likely inevitable, and don’t really do Une Colonie any favors, as Burnham’s film is clearly superior. But as it moves along, you notice the differences more than the similarities – the types of things that Dulude-De Celles is doing that Burnham didn’t attempt. She is trying to make a film with a slightly wider angle lens here. Yes, it’s still about the trials and tribulations of being a 13-year-old girl – but it makes connections to the world outside of her immediate vicinity as well. It has to do with the title of the film, which is about colonization. Clearly, the main character is responsible for that – for what has been done to Indigenous Canadians in the past or present. But it explores perhaps what she can do, in her very small way.

 

The film stars Emilie Bierre (so good in a small role in Philippe Lasange’s Genesis recently as well) as Mylia – a quiet, shy 13-year-old girl in rural Quebec. She has a little sister – Camille (Irlande Cote) who is a little weird – perhaps no weirder that Mylia, but less afraid to show others her weirdness in that way little kids can be fearless. Their parents are going through some stuff – and perhaps won’t make it. All Mylia really wants is to fit in at school and have friends. And then she makes two – who couldn’t be more different from each other. The first is Jacinthe (Cassandra Gosselin-Pelletier), who is what Mylia thinks she wants in a friend – one of the popular girls, who accepts Mylia into her group, as long as she doesn’t rock the boat, or question what Jacinthe does too much. The other is Jimmy (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie), an Abenaki boy who lives on the reserve close to town. The film certainly hints at making Jimmy into a noble savior figure –we first see him rescuing Camille as she is being taunted by the other kids in the film’s opening scene, and later we will see him rescue Mylia and get her home when she drinks too much “punch” at Jacinthe’s party. You cringe a little when you think this is going to be another story where the Indigenous character exists solely to teach the white people in the movie something – but luckily, Jimmy becomes a more complex character after those initial appearances. He is a nice guy – a real one – but he isn’t perfect, and he doesn’t just take the casual and not so casual racism he faces on a day-to-day basis in stride – it makes him angry. He is also capable of lashing out – more out of disappointment than angry – at Mylia, like when she tells him she’s dressing up with Jacinthe and her friends as a girl group for a Halloween party, and he wonders why she doesn’t go as a “warrior” instead of a “slut”.

 

But you can see where this is going – and you are pretty much right. Eventually, Mylia will have to decide between what she wants in a friendship – the real one that Jimmy offers her, which comes with the added bonus that he genuinely cares for, and likes Camille, or the kind of fake friendship that Jacinthe offers. But even that isn’t quite so simple – as the film is more a journey for Mylia than anything else. At the end of the movie, she’s pretty much in the exact same situation she was in at the beginning of the film – but now, she is better able to handle it, and stay true to herself.

 

The film is well-made by Dulude-De Celles in a casual, observational style. She doesn’t provide Mylia any opportunities – like the Vlog’s in Eighth Grade did – for her to tell her feelings to the camera, but then again, it isn’t as necessary, as she has more friends that she converses with here – and the stakes are laid out fairly explicitly. The film could have descended into cliché and sentimentality – and although it comes close at times, it never quite does. A lot of that is due to the performances – all of which appealing by the young cast. All three of Bierre, Whiteduck-Lavoie and Cote are appealing young performers, and they carry the movie through any rough patches there may be.

 

Ultimately, I do wish that a film that is about finding yourself, and being true to yourself no matter how weird that may be was a little weirder itself. Ultimately, the film pretty much does what you expect it to. I do like the young performances, the direction – and the attempt to show normal Indigenous people in Canada, and have the film not be blind to the fact that they are Indigenous, but not let that completely define a character like Jimmy as well. The film won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Picture this year – and while that is a little much (especially considering the wonderful, aforementioned Genesis was also nominated) – it certainly is a good film, and makes me interested to see what Dulude-De Celles – and her talented young cast – all do next.

Movie Review: Genesis

Genesis **** / *****

Directed by: Philippe Lesage.

Written by: Philippe Lesage.

Starring: Théodore Pellerin (Guillaume), Noée Abita (Charlotte), Paul Ahmarani (Perrier), Édouard Tremblay-Grenier (Félix), Emilie Bierre (Béatrice), Jules Roy Sicotte (Nicolas), Marc Beaupré (Coach Jacques), Émile Bilodeau (Seb), Brett Dier (Todd), Pier-Luc Funk (Maxime), Antoine Marchand Gagnon (Alexis), Maxime Dumontier (Theo).

 

Phillippe Lesage’s thorny Genesis is a film that continues to grow in my mind the farther I get from it. It is about the pain of young love – and lust – but not in the innocent, cutesy way we often see in so called coming of age movies. It is a film about thwarted desire – and the consequences of putting yourself out there, even while recognizing that the only way to get what you are longing for is to do just that. It is a film about heartbreak – but one that recognizes the lasting, serious impact of that.

 

At its core, for at least the first 100 minutes of Genesis, are two step-siblings – high school aged Guillaume (Theodore Pellerin) and his college aged step-sister Charlotte (Noée Abita). He is at an all-boys dormitory school, and is seemingly popular in his school – at least on the surface. He’s a jokester and the class clown, and he can get everyone laughing. And yet, in terms of close friendships, there is really only Nicolas (Jules Roy Sicotte) – a jock with him his shares an easy connection. It’s clear from the outset – although the movie doesn’t make it explicit until later – that Guillaume is performing in his more overtly confident moments. We see him more himself as he sits, alone, reading – or walking through a party full of couples dancing by himself – feeling alone and isolated, because of course, he cannot admit who he is – not yet. When he finally does – in two painfully awkward scenes (one to Nicolas himself, another to his entire class) – they are the two best moments in Pellerin’s terrific performance (he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for his wildly over the top performance in Family First – he should have won it for this). They aren’t quite the heartbreak moments you think they could be – but it certainly does lead to a terrible ending for him, based on little more than stereotypes from this sort of closed minded school.

 

His older sister, on the other hand, is not in an unrequited love situation in college – and isn’t just pining to express her sexuality. She has no problems finding partners – boyfriends, sex partners, etc. – but it doesn’t bring her anymore happiness than not finding them brought Guillaume. We first meet her when she’s with a boy her own age – Maxime (Pier-Luc Funk) – and seems happy. But then, in an awkward young man’s attempt to seem worldly, he suggests that they may not always be together, and perhaps an open relationship is more fitting (the poor bastard doesn’t realize at the time that the way this is going to end is with him on the floor in a heap crying). Charlotte seemingly finds what Maxime says he wanted – in an older boyfriend – Theo (Maxime Dumontier) – but he ultimately isn’t any better than Maxime – any more mature – and wants that initial wave of lust dies between them, she’s left with the same emptiness. That openness though leads to the most traumatic moment in the film – that basically ends the story of Guillaume and Charlotte.

 

And that’s because, Lesage does something interesting and strange with about 30 minutes to go in the film – he leaves behind his main characters, and tells a completely different story of young love for the final act in the film. He revisits the protagonist from his 2015 debut film The Demons (unseen by me – but not for long considering how much I liked Genesis) – Felix (Édouard Tremblay-Grenier) – now a young teenager, away at summer camp. He locks eyes, meaningfully, with Béatrice (Emilie Bierre) and the two have what passes for a summer relationship when you’re around 13 years old – a lot of tentative glances, awkward looks, and friends acting as go-betweens, and finally hand holding. This is a more innocent romance than what we see the other two protagonists go through – and yet, oddly, it isn’t particularly refreshing. It’s sadder than anything else – because we know what is in store for them – what these innocent interactions turn into. Right now, they are innocent – but in a few years, they will be at the mercy of what we’ve seen in the other part of the movie – toxic masculinity, insecurity, bigotry and rape culture.

 

All of this probably makes Genesis sound bleaker and more depressing than it actually is. For as dark as things can get in Genesis, there is also a strange level of hope here – hope that if these characters can remain open, they may actually be able to get what it is they want. Guillaume and Charlotte are ahead of their peers in many ways – and that is why they get hit harder. Felix and Beatrice are also ahead somewhat – we aren’t seeing other such romances here.

 

All of this is rendered in a deeply humanist way by Lesange and his actors. His style is often to hold the camera longer than you think we would – shots go on a long time here, and don’t look away. The film has an interesting structure – going back and forth between Guillaume and Charlotte, before flashing to Felix and Beatrice. It’s a complex movie that doesn’t really tell you what to think, what to feel – and it refuses to wrap anything up in a neat package. And that is perhaps why the film is staying with me, haunting me, for days when most films dissipate as soon they are over.

Movie Review: The Great Darkened Days

The Great Darkened Days *** / *****

Directed by: Maxime Giroux.

Written by: Simon Beaulieu and Maxime Giroux and Alexandre Laferrière.

Starring: Martin Dubreuil (Philippe), Sarah Gadon (Helen), Romain Duris (Lester), Reda Kateb (Hector), Buddy Duress (Opponent), Cody Fern (Travelling Salesman), Lise Roy (Philippe's Mother), Soko (Rosie).

 

During WWII, before America has entered the war, a Quebec draft dodger, Phillippe (Martin Dubreuil) wanders through the American West, basically only finding misery wherever he turns. The Great Darkened Days is a surreal period piece with a sad clown at its center – a passive character who wanders through this world not fully comprehending what he sees – and what happens to him. It’s a bizarre film – a film that I have a feeling many people will hate, a few will love – and will more than likely confound anyone who sees it. Does it work? Not really – at the end of it, I have no idea what co-writer/director Maxime Giroux is saying about, well, anything. And yet it’s a weirdly fascinating film – bringing to mind Wim Wenders and David Lynch, but with a distinctly Quebecois feel. So maybe it doesn’t work – you won’t be bored.

 

The film opens with Philippe winning a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest, and winning the $10 grand prize. It’s just about the last piece of good luck he’ll have in the movie. Because from there, everyone he meets – no matter how nice they seem at first – really are not nice at all. There is one of his opponents in the contest (Buddy Duress) who will rob Philippe of his money. There is the talent scout (Reda Kateb) who seems very nice (and apparently discovered R.E.W. – as a bizarre scene finds Everybody Hurts blaring from a car radio in the 1940s, as Philippe dances around the desert like Chaplin) – who picks our hero up at the side of the road, and leaves at a place he says he will find help. He won’t – but he will meet Helen (Sarah Gadon), who takes him into her home, and will feed him a hot meal and give him a place to stay – but also has a woman tied up who she treats quite literally like a dog (Soko). Then there is Lester (Romain Duris) who runs some sort of bizarre human trafficking ring. You know you’re in bad shape when perhaps the nicest guy you meet is a travelling cigarette salesman (Cody Fern).

 

There are surreal touches throughout The Great Darkened Days that let you know that while this seems like the 1940s in our timeline, perhaps it isn’t. The R.E.M. song that blares out of the radio is the moment where you either decide to role with this film, or fight it tooth and nail the rest of the way. The moment right after with Patton’s voice coming blaring out the radio talking about war (and I think it’s actually George C. Scott as Patton) takes things a little further. There’s also a moment when Philippe goes to sleep in the desert in the middle of summer, and wakes up under a giant pile of snow. Or, of course, the human dog. You could extend this a little farther in saying that for the American West, there is sure a lot of French people around – but perhaps that’s just because the film is from Quebec.

 

I am really at a loss to come up with a reason what Giroux and company are saying with this film. In a way, it’s a Job story, with our hero suffering through one trial after another – but for what purpose, who knows? Perhaps it’s just a way of punishing Philippe for dodging the draft – for not going to war for his country, or the filmmaker’s way of saying that war may be hell, but so regular life. You won’t escape unscathed. Perhaps its just surreal for the sake of being surreal. Your guess is as good as mine.

 

What I will say is that the film is endlessly fascinating. The direction by Giroux is impressive – this is a period film on a budget, but the details are great. The photography – which ranges from the wide open, bright spaces of the desert, to an extended sequence that is basically all darkness is great – leading up to a final image as beautiful as it is confounding. The supporting performances are all aces as well – no one more so that Sarah Gadon (who has quietly become one of my favorite actresses – almost in Canadian content like the Cronenberg films Cosmopolis and Maps to Stars, Villeneuve’s final film before going Hollywood - Enemy - or the TV show Alias Grace) who is so chipper and friendly it’s creepy, even before you meet Rosie. Martin Dubreuil’s performance in the lead is interesting – he is a passive character, we never really learn much about him – not even why he dodged the drafted (was he a coward? A pacifist? Is there another reason?). Other than that dance sequence, he doesn’t show his comedic chops that would have won him that contest at the beginning – and even then, he looks as sad and miserable as he does the rest of the time. But his face says a lot.

 

I guess, in the end, you’re left with the question as to whether this bizarre journey the movie takes us on is worth the destination of nowhere where we actually end up. That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Movie Review: Firecrackers

Firecrackers *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Jasmin Mozaffari.

Written by: Jasmin Mozaffari.

Starring: Michaela Kurimsky (Lou), Karena Evans (Chantal), Callum Thompson (Jesse), David Kingston (Johnny), Tamara LeClair (Leanne), Scott Cleland (Josh), Dylan Mask (Kyle), Gabe Meacher (Eric), Robert Cormier (Shane), Tarick Glancy (Travis), Karleena Kelly (Cam Girl), Devon Collins (Taylor), Jorja Cadence (Skylar).

 

Firecrackers is a bleak film about two teenage girls in a dead-end, go nowhere Ontario town who dream of getting out and going to New York. What they’ll do there they don’t say – they probably don’t even know – all they really know is that they no longer want to be stuck here in this town where there is nothing to do except drink, do drugs and fuck idiot boys. There is no industry to speak of here – where they exactly they are isn’t specified, but it looks like it could easily be one of those beach towns that people get away in the summer, and dead the rest of the time. One of the girls has a mother in the picture – but she isn’t much of a good influence, and the other doesn’t even have that. They are going nowhere if they don’t get out – that’s about all they know.

 

Firecrackers is a film that immediately brings to mind the work of Andrea Arnold (who got her biggest showcase with Season 2 of Big Little Lies, until the men involved – none of who are as talented as she is pretty much pushed her out in post-production) – specifically her two stories of young women trying to escape their lot in life – Fish Tank and American Honey. It isn’t as good as either of those films – perhaps because like many first time filmmakers, Jasmin Mozaffari is expanding a short film into a feature – always a tricky endeavor, as sometimes there just isn’t enough material to expand. Firecrackers can feel repetitive at times – as it puts its two main characters through the ringer again and again. I also wish there was more of a sense of place to the film – the small town here feels anonymous – perhaps intentionally, to make it seem universal (or not limit it in markets who normally wouldn’t watch a Canadian film) – but I wish there was more of a sense of this place other than it being a dead end town where dreams go to die.

 

Having said that, there is still a ton to recommend about Firecrackers – which certainly marks Mozaffari as a filmmaker to watch. For one thing, the two lead performances are terrific – especially that of Michaela Kurimsky as Lou. She’s the leader of the two girls – the more assertive of the two, and the one that will get them into the most trouble. She struggles with her mother – a former addict, who now says she has found God – and a much younger boyfriend, Johnny (David Kingston) – another addict who says he has found the same. Johnny isn’t a father figure type – he tries, but he’s so weak willed, such a pushover around everyone, and seemingly teetering on the brink of his own sobriety, he simply cannot do anything. Lou is reckless, she acts without thinking. But she is also caring and loyal – she struggles with her own sexuality – she performs as teenage girls are supposed to, but there’s more there than that – and she is supportive of her younger brother, who seems to be dealing with his own burgeoning sexuality in a way their mother never can be. There is a marked difference in how Lou behaves when she has to perform for her peers, then when she is apart from them. And Kurimsky nails it all. Karena Evans as her best friend Chantal also has a tricky role. She is one of the only non-white people in town – and has to deal with the casual racism that is there in an almost all white community. She is more passive than Lou – more accepting of the things that are done to here, more willing to go along to get along – even when terrible things are done to her.

 

In a way, this is a tale of female friendship – but it’s apparent that it’s a friendship that may not last. Lou and Chantal have clung to each other in this small town, because basically, they have no one else to cling to. They have this dreaming of getting out – but it’s one Lou seems to want more than Chantal when it comes down to it. The back half of the film concentrates more on Lou as the two friends separate for a time, before being brought back together at the end. Even there, they seem to be performing their friendship more than they were at the beginning. This relationship feels more fragile and tenuous than ever before.

 

As a director, Mozaffari is already quite good. While the Arnold influence is apparent, she also makes the film her own with her style. The film can be chaotic and hectic – the wild night that almost destroys everything for the two girls for example. But she is also more than capable of slowing things down as she does in the back half. The writing isn’t quite as strong as the direction – the film certainly does feel like a short expanded into a feature, with perhaps too many of the same beats hit again and again, which results in the film being perhaps more punishing than it intended. But it shows Mozaffari as a filmmaker to watch – and I’ll certainly be watching for Evan and especially Kurimsky as well.

Movie Review: Just a Breath Away

Just a Breath Away ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Daniel Roby.

Written by: Guillaume Lemans and Jimmy Bemon & Mathieu Delozier.

Starring: Romain Duris (Mathieu), Olga Kurylenko (Anna), Fantine Harduin (Sarah), Michel Robin (Lucien), Anna Gaylor (Colette), Réphaël Ghrenassia (Noé), Erja Malatier (Charlotte).

 

You get the sense as you watch Just a Breath Away that the filmmakers are trying to pull out all the stops in order to get you emotionally involved in what is, if you think about it, a really silly movie. But give them credit I guess – because for the most part, it works. It probably shouldn’t work – and if you think about the movie, it probably doesn’t. But as you watch the film, it really does seem to do what it wants. It keeps you involved for 90 minutes – and emotionally invested, even if you know precisely what will happen.

 

Basically, what happens in the film is that an Earthquake of some kid rocks Paris, and unleashes a kind of mist or gas. The mist only goes up so high however – so if you’re on the upper floors of an apartment building, you are still above the gas – at for now (it’s rising, of course). If you breath in the gas, you die – and pretty damn quickly. As with all movies such as this, the film starts with what is undeniably thousands – and perhaps even millions (we do not know how far reaching the gas goes) dying in the initial attack, but we’re focused on just one family in the midst of that attack. Mathieu and Anna (Romain Duris and Olga Kurylenko) are the parents of Sarah (Fantine Harduin) – who like a growing number of kids around the world, have developed a new disease of some sort that makes them sensitive to their surroundings. So sensitive in fact that they have to be confined to their sterile bubble in their homes. These bubbles need electricity to run – which of course has been short circuited by the gas attack. For now, Sarah is okay – they have a seemingly endless supply of batteries, although those need to be changed frequently. It’s even worse for her, because while Mathieu and Anna have taken shelter with the elderly couple upstairs, their own apartment –with Sarah’s bubble – is covered in gas. As long as the bubble works, she’s safe. But how long can that last?

 

Wisely, the movie doesn’t really spend all that much time trying to figure out what the gas is, where it came from, or why. When you have a giant gas cloud that can killed people, and has engulfed at least one major city, no real explanation is going to make sense, so it’s better to accept the premise, and move on – and that’s what the film does. The film also makes the most of the gas attack for ratcheting up the tension and the visuals- as long as you have a gas mask, you can head out into the gas. So there are lots of shots of Mathieu, Anna or both of them running through the gas in the chaos of streets, where of course, they cannot see too far in front of them. And the even creepier visuals are those with Mathieu on the balcony or the roof of the building – that gas hovering just below them. Does it make much sense? No – but visually, it works.

 

If you’ve read this far, you can probably guess what is going to happen in Just a Breath Away – and you would more than likely be correct. There are lots of scenes of frantically have to change Sarah’s battery – scenes of people running out of air in the gas masks, or having their lines cut – and having to go out in the gas anyway and try and hold their breath. There is a little – although not much – of the chaos that such an attack may inspire, and a feeling that man, of course, is the real bad guy. Here, the lower budget may have hurt the film a little – there isn’t a lot in the ways of extras, and really only one cop who seems to be handling things poorly. The scope of this film is very narrow – too narrow really considering the size of the attack.

 

Yet for all of its flaws, the film pretty much works as you’re watching it. Yes, it’s kind of silly – and the longer the dialogue scenes go, the more the film drags. But when the film is out on the streets, in those action sequences, it basically works. And I like to imagine that the elderly couple upstairs was living their own happy-go-lucky version of Haneke’s Amour even before the gas came along (Michel Robin is very good as the old man). It’s not a film you’re likely to remember for very long, but for its modest ambitions, it gets the job done.

Movie Review: Chien de Garde

Chien de Garde (Family First) ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sophie Dupuis.

Written by: Sophie Dupuis.

Starring: Theodore Pellerin (Vincent), Jean-Simon Leduc (JP), Paul Ahmarani (Uncle Danny), Maude Guerin (Mom), Claudel Laberge (Mel).

 

Chien de Garde is the debut film of Sophie Dupuis – who has several shorts under her belt, and to be honest, it kind of feels like a short film that has added significant padding in order to get to 90 minutes. The film repeats itself – again and again – after its first act setup as we wait for the inevitable conclusion to finally arrive. It isn’t a bad film – it has some good acting, and shows promise. But a Chien de Garde at 30-45 minutes what certainly be preferable to the one we got at 90 minutes.

 

The film is about two brothers, living in the Verdun area of Montreal with their alcoholic mother. JP (Jean-Simon Leduc) is in his early 20s, and alongside his 19-year-old brother Vincent (Theodore Pellerin) they work for their drug dealing Uncle Danny (Paul Ahmarani) doing collections and intimidation. JP doesn’t much want this life though – he’s in school to learn a trade to get out, he has a girlfriend (Mel (Claudel Laberge) – but this is the family business. This is what is expected of him. And for Vincent – who has some sort of personality disorder that makes him hyper active, and borderline insufferable at times, - is unlikely to be able to do anything else. Uncle Danny knows the pressure points to push on JP to get him to do what he wants. It isn’t a coincidence that when he feels JP starting to back away, he pushes him to take on a bigger role – one that involves murder – and also starts reaching out to Mel. Anything that may take JP away from the family business – and the family itself – needs to be dealt with.

 

For anyone who watches Chien de Garde, the element they will remember the most (for better or worse) is Theodore Pellerin’s performance as Vincent. For some, he will be insufferable, and drive them to turn off the movie. Pellerin pushes this performance to the edge of what one can you in a film like this in terms of being annoying. Whatever is wrong with Vincent is never spelled out in the film. But he is socially awkward, violent and completely lacks self-awareness, and doesn’t seem to be able to read other people either. He always seems right on the edge of exploding and doing something thoughtlessly violent. He makes everyone around him uncomfortable. He is the reason Mel is moving out of house that she has been living in with JP, Vincent and their mother. He is also the reason JP doesn’t want to leave with her – or leave Uncle Danny. What will happen to Vincent if JP isn’t there to protect him – to babysit him – at all times?

 

It is this brotherly relationship that is really the heart of the film. Pellerin’s performance is more memorable, but Leduc’s performance is clearly superior – as a young man with the weight of the world in his shoulders and it’s starting to show. Strangely, and disappointingly, the two major female characters – Mel and the boys’ mother – are underwritten. Mel in particular is impossible to get a handle on. The film toys with us by showing us her texting Uncle Danny, but then just kind of drops that when it’s not needed anymore. The ending of the film feels more like wish fulfillment than anything else – a way to wrap things up in perhaps not the way we expect it to, but in a way that will make us feel better about what we’ve watched.

 

There are some good things about Chien de Garde – the two lead performances among them, but also the visual look, which is full of subdued colors and muted tones. It’s clear that Dupuis has some skill. But the film never really does anything overly original with its overly familiar premise, and makes some missteps along the way to boot, making it not as satisfying as it should or could be.