A trigger warning had not been entirely wrong. "Sensitive souls are warned of the hysterical adultery that colors the entire first act."
An over-stressed Canadian sibling in his 30s is moaning, quarreling, joking with one another in an internal jargon that causes my skin to choke. Have childish and plush exchanges of meaning that one understands were established at an early age but now do not look as fresh.
After a while, we get to meet their parents who are just as hard-working (but should probably also be perceived as "a little lovely") and more silent film actresses with closed eyes and raised eyebrows await.
Every now and then, it is only the paid assignment that keeps me looking.
But that's fine. When things calm down, when the Teflon characters Sophia and Karim let the outside world influence them, we are also let in, and the first half-hour's fun-filled purgatory takes on a somewhat deeper meaning than was initially thought.
Like many other relational comedies right now (from Fleabag to Ring Mom!), The protagonist is a charming but lost slacker woman who doesn't want to grow up and take responsibility, a movie role that traditionally belonged to the man until Bridget Jones stepped onto the screen, and who first In recent years, many followers have followed.
In this case , it is a 35-year-old academic with no work or home living at home with the said brother - who admittedly has a job, as a psychologist, but not really ids to take seriously. When Karim suddenly falls in love, for real, the premise changes, not least for Sophia. It is also then that Monia Chokri's comedy begins to eat into the heart. Well, maybe not all the way there, but close.
Canadian Monia Chokri is usually on the other side of the camera, she broke through in Xavier Dolan's Heartbeat, has played for another of the country's biggest regina names, Denys Arcand. But here she makes her feature film debut as a director - and then with a highly personal film that challenges the audience (consciously or not) with the silly first act, but then brings us on to a more sensible continuation. As also made possible to see Chokri's ingenious script that houses a lot of fun thematic details and threads that seem hidden, becomes clear first in retrospect.
Like that abortion that Sophia is going through and then Karim has with her as support. The latter sets up the female doctor who then also becomes his partner. So the doctor not only scrapes the fertilized egg, but also - indirectly - pushes Sophia out of her brother's nest. It is a sequence that does not hurt either the intervention or the move, which is only there as a complex and in-depth intrigue premise.
It is at all a smart and in many ways quick film, with an open mind and end, but which at least initially had served to be performed in a lower key.