‘PEAK everything’ Review: Piper Perabo Headlines A CUTE Canadian Rom-Commed Imbued with Very Timely anxieties

With Peak everythingDirector Anne Emond (Young Juliet, Nelly) Offers A Relative, if Somewhat Uneven, Dark Rom-Com that Suits Thste uncertain Times.

Patrick Hivon Stars As Adam, A Francophone Quebecois Kennel-Wracked with Depression and Anxiety About Climate Catastrophe, Who Cutely Meets Ontarian Tina (PerAboly) Technical Support Line. ALTHOUGH Wildfires Scorch, Storms Rage and Earthquakes Shake All Armund The Periphary of the Film’s Pilm, These Two Lonely, Early-Middle-Agged Souls Can ‘FEELINGS CANEELINGS Love Like – Oops! – The fact that tina is married. Emond’s Script Deftly Contricies A Third Act That’s Hopeful But Still Flecked with Genuine Despair.

That Gloomy Underetow Mayit Peak everything‘S Commercial Appeal Outside Canada, But Its Debut in the Directors’ Fortnight Showcase at Cannes May Help Boost Its Offshore Prospects. That said, this still feels like a profoundly Canadian Film, in the best sort of way: appeingly quirky but tinged with melancholy, imbued with a Polite, Humanist tolerance for ebb. Characters, and grounded in a strong Sense of Locality and Love for the Natural World. Tina’s Origin Is Never Revealed-A Minor Shame, Because if Only Were Mentied that She’s American, Like The Actor Who Plays Her, The Whole Film Could be Seen WHEN SUCH MESSAGES ARE NEEDED MOST, GIVEN THE CURRENT POLITICAL Climate.

AT LEAST THEIR ROMANCE Crosses the Quebec-Ontario Border. Adam Lives in A Small Town in the French-Speaking Province, A Terrain that’s Relating Picturesque Althugh The Main Road Snakes TROUGH AREA THAT’S CLEALY SEEN SOMEAV Devoid of All Plant Life. Despite his handsome face and fit physique, adam have seemingly been a bachelor for some time.

He’s lovelorn enough that he doesn’t protest WHEN His VAMPISH YOUNG EMPLOYEE Romy (Elizabeth Mageren) Suddenly Grabs Him and Insists on a bout of the ate. cares for at his hasenel. The Shot of the Pack All Sitting Patiently and Looking in One Direction, As if Observing Adam and Romy Getting It On, Must Have Surely Been Achieved With The Promise of Tales and Lots of In French), But It’s Adorable All The Same. The Next Day, Romy Exploits The Sity Coming in Late and Later Deliberalate Makes Adam Uncomfortable by Bringing Another Guy to Work to Have Sex With.

Adam’s Boorish Father Eugene (Veteran Canadian Character Actor Gililles Renaud, Rocking a Ridiculous Long-Haired Wig) is Hardly Any Comfort Antidepressants and Sleeping Pills Adam Has Just Got on Prescription Down The Sink, Inseting His Son Doesn’t Need Any of that. By and by, we learn that adam’s Mother Mother May Also Have Been Prone to Depression, and Emond Talks in the Press Notes About A History of Suicide and Depression in Her Ot. But Any Sentient Human Who Keeps Up with The News Just A Little Bit Will Get Will Is Suffied with Anxiety Given the Overwhelming Cascade of Climate-Related Disasters Describes in Detail to His New Therapist.

WHEN Adam Finds A Leaflet That Offers A Phone Number to Call For “Support” in the Packaging for his New Light-Terpy Lamp, He Mistakenly Thinks This Means Mistaken. This introduces him to tina, whose dulcet voice and tinkling laugh are immediatally soothying, Even WHEN WHO RUGHLY CONFORMING to the Customer

A FEW NOT-STRICTLY-NECESARY CALLS LATER, The Two Are Sharing Personal Details and Jokes, Whoans Adam Goes Into A Panic Who Line Goes Suddenly Dead One Evening. He grabs the keys to his facher’s and drivers through the Night to Find Tina Over The BORDER, Evacuated to a Community Center After A Sudden Earthquake Has Shaken the Town.

This Near-Calamity Really Smells of Authorial Contrivance to Get the Two Principals to Meet in Person, While Further Comic Hijinks Jerry-Rigged to Drive the Couple Fur. Even SO, The Chemistry Between the Leads Is Persuasive Enough To Let It All Slide As We Watch The Couple Bond Back in Quebec, Sort of the Run and Sort of Just Coasting in Do with Their growing affoction for one Another. At one Point, Emond and the Leads Find a Creative, Erotic Way to Show that Attration While the Characters Stay Just Within of Chatty in A Bedroom Scen.

Imaginative Touchs Like That Go A Long Way Toward Ameliorating the Film’s Small But Not Ignorable Flaws, Such As Its Tendency Town Sentiationality To be to Land the Plane Safly. Neverthaless, Emond and the Cast’s Comic Timing and the Palpable Sense That Core Conceit Was Borne of A Genuine Sense of Anxiety Carries It Through. Ditto the Grainy Warmth of the 35MM Cinematography by Olivier Gossot, an Old-School Touch That Literaly Softens the Film’s Rouge Edges in the Nicest Sort of Way.