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‘Peak Everything’ Review: Absurdist Quebecois Comedy Tries to Do Too Many Things At Once
Anne Émond’s 'Peak Everything,' about a kindly man troubled by Earth’s approaching end, is sweet and mysterious for a while until it loses the plot.
But he manages all the same, despite his hard-bitten father Eugène (Gilles Renaud), who insensitively doesn’t share his concerns, and an assistant at the kennel named Romy (Élizabeth Mageren, making the most of her undeveloped comic-relief part), who freely manipulates Adam as she wishes. Era-blending production design (without the technology and smart devices in the film, you wouldn’t be able to tell what decade we’re in) complements the story’s ethereal feel, while the locations juxtapose calm and quaint spaces against industrial plants and smoking chimneys, echoing Adam’s split headspace. Meanwhile, his dreamlike excursions to snowy, meditative landscapes often ground the story in a quieter environment, even when Émond overplots her tale’s ecosystem with various forgettable side characters and throwaway situational comedy.
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