Rating: C+
Dir: Gabriel Allard
Star: Catherine Bérubé, Olivier Renaud, Paul Doucet, Kimberly-Sue Murray
Just about all the other reviews of this I’ve read, have one thing in common: everybody said, they saw the twist coming. They’re not wrong. You would, I suspect, need to be particularly oblivious for it to come as much of a shock. However, I don’t reckon this damaged the film too much. Felt to me as if the makers were just not particularly concerned with it coming as a surprise, to anyone except for the lead character. This is Mary-Jane Morris (Bérubé), known to everyone as MJ. She’s a snowboarder who relocated from Vermont to Canada, until her life there is upended, by her involvement in a car accident which killed the kids of her best friend, Alice (Murray).
Consequently, her life in the small mountain town has become almost untenable, with MJ becoming a pariah. Only a few people will still talk to her, such as her boyfriend Fred (Renaud), who was in the car at the time. Initially, the film is split into two time-lines: one showing the events leading up to the accident, the other MJ’s post-crash efforts to rebuild her life. The latter prove terminally unsuccessful; she decides to leave town, and head back to Vermont. But her efforts to do so, are stymied at every turn, by forces apparently beyond MJ’s control. There are weird incidents in her cabin, as if someone is sneaking into her cabin, and moving things about. Or perhaps she is simply going mad.
I’ll stop there: I fear I may have said too much already. However, I actually found the film a bit more engaging once I had worked out the destination. The early going was rather disorienting, as it jumped between the pre- and post-accident threads. Once it settled down and you could see where it was going, it was easier to enjoy the journey. Bérubé is on screen in almost every scene, and I liked her performance – probably to a greater degree than most of the supporting cast, who don’t do much to give their characters much depth. The exception might be Rachelle (Margaux Vaillancourt), the little moppet in a snow-suit (top), who drops surprisingly profound nuggets of philosophical wisdom on MJ.
I’d have liked to have seen the film go on further, and see how MJ dealt with her eventual situation. Another ten or fifteen minutes would have allowed things to wrap up less abruptly. Still, the scenery is pretty, the cinematography on point, and a special nod to the sound design and music, both of which do a fine job of enhancing a steadily increasing atmosphere of dread. To be honest, it could have benefited from a bit more subtlety. There’s at least one line which is painfully obvious, and there’s not much satisfaction in putting together the pieces, when the jigsaw is one apparently intended for those 0-3 years old. But providing you’re not looking for a challenge, this should pass muster.
[The film is out on VOD now, from 4 Digital Media]