Los Angeles Times - 04.10.2019

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AT THE MOVIES

Filmmakers attuned
to the pulsating internal
rhythms of apprehensive
youths are special artists,
and French Canadian film-
maker Philippe Lesage is
fast proving to be one of
those, first with his 2015
narrative feature debut,
“The Demons,” about a fear-
ridden boy and now with
“Genèse” (“Genesis”), which
explores the anxiety-laced
terrain that is first love.
Working in a tradition of
humanism and seriousness
regarding the inner lives of
children and teens that has
bonded the work of Francois
Truffaut and Louis Malle to
moviegoers’ hearts, Lesage
certainly has a ways to go
before reaching those direc-
tors’ levels of emotional
mastery.
But he nonetheless offers
up plenty of heartfelt intelli-
gence and sublimity with his
trio of exquisitely wracked
adolescents, for whom
awakened desire is as much
a minefield as a thrilling new
world.
For much of the two-
hours-and-change running
time, Lesage alternates
between two of his three
characters, step-siblings
with separate lives but simi-
lar trajectories.
Lanky, Salinger-devour-
ing 16-year-old Guillaume
(Théodore Pellerin) is an
acerbic class wit at a boys
boarding school with an
unexpressed crush on his
quieter, hockey-playing best
friend, Nicolas (Jules Roy
Sicotte), while slightly older,
bright-eyed Charlotte (Noée
Abita) is at university deal-
ing with the unexpected
heartbreak that her long-
time boyfriend, Maxime

(Pier-Luc Funk), wants an

open relationship.

In each thread, social

strictures create an environ-

ment for our protagonists in

which the processing of jum-

bled feelings, and efforts to

liberate those emotions,

carry consequences. At

Guillaume’s aggressively

heteronormative school, a

history teacher’s explicit

patter about female geni-

talia and insulting treat-

ment of students is blithely

accepted by his smirking

students, while homophobic

taunts from the dorm moni-

tor mark the day’s close.

Navigating his feelings

about Nicolas eventually

morphs into an instance of

bad timing, but Guillaume’s

emotional boldness is a

treasurable quality, most

heart-stoppingly drama-

tized when he delivers to his

classmates a beautifully

honest monologue of devo-

tion — it’s a scene of self-ex-

pression unlike any other in

teen-love cinema. As power-

fully portrayed by Pellerin

(who can be seen in a vastly

different role on Showtime’s

“On Becoming a God in

Central Florida”), Guil-

laume is a young man who

trusts his puckish popu-

larity and openness to pro-

tect him from humiliation.

Charlotte, meanwhile, is

a case study in the limits

young straight women en-

counter when searching for

connection in a dating pool

of callow, untrustworthy

males. She finds some solace

in clubbing with girlfriends,

then discovers a sexual

forthrightness in bouncing

back with the older Theo

(Maxime Dumontier),

whose single-mindedly car-

nal attention toward her is

initially a welcome match

with her newfound erotic

freedom. But Charlotte’s

dormant sense of romantic

propriety reemerges to clash

with a libertine’s blasé atti-

tude toward a sexual part-

ner’s needs.

Lesage then introduces

real peril to Guillaume’s and

Charlotte’s stories, but with

a coolly tragic sensibility

that effectively communi-

cates the hazards lying in

wait for the passionate, mis-

understood and vulnerable.

That’s also when Lesage

and his sympathetic, se-

renely regarding camera

leave the siblings behind to

transport us to a woodsy

summer camp setting for a

precious final vignette rein-

troducing his “Demons”

lead character Felix

(Édouard Tremblay-Gre-

nier, returning), who is now a

hesitant, guitar-playing

teen discovering he has feel-

ings for similarly shy at-

tendee Beatrice (Émilie

Bierre).

With ebullient folk music,

blushing faces and innocent

hand-holding under the

trees suddenly replacing the

somber emo pop, shadowy

instability and unrequited

desire of Guillaume’s and

Charlotte’s stories, it’s as if

Lesage has made both a jar-

ring narrative swerve and

yet a sneakily poetic tempo-

ral feint. Some may feel like

it’s an abandonment of two

characters at a low point,

but there’s a method in Le-

sage’s tonal shift to a scene

of hearts first stirred.

“Genèse” concludes as a so-

ber reminder that the young

always feel intensely but

that the years between the

crush that shines and the ar-

dor that confounds are short

ones indeed.

REVIEW

Twisting up the threads of young love

The French Canadian

‘Genèse’ deftly studies

three teens caught up

in romantic drama.

By Robert Abele

GUILLAUME(Théodore Pellerin), in light-blue button down, has a crush on his best friend, Nicolas. Paul Ahmarani plays the teacher.

Film Movement

The 2012 Stephen King
and Joe Hill novella “In the
Tall Grass” spins creeping
terror from a simple idea:
What if a brother and sister
go looking for a crying child
in a vast field in the middle of
nowhere, then can’t find
their way out?
Writer-director Vincenzo
Natali is best known for the
1997 cult movie “Cube,”
about a stark maze filled
with invisible death traps.
He has some experience
with staging an entire fea-
ture film in a largely feature-
less location, and his adapt-
ation of “In the Tall Grass”
has real visual flair, treating
an endless expanse of sway-
ing green vegetation as a
kind of eerie fog, hiding un-
imaginable dangers.
Natali doesn’t do as well,
though, at making those
dangers feel ... well, danger-
ous. His “In the Tall Grass”
starts out like the original:
Laysla De Oliveira plays the
pregnant, unwed Becky De-
muth, who with her brother
Cal (Avery Whitted) is driv-
ing across the country when
they hear a boy shouting for
his parents in a field across

from “the Church of the

Black Rock of the Re-

deemer.” When they enter

the field to help, they get lost

— although they do keep

running into the boy, the

mother, the father and a

mysterious rune-covered

black boulder.

The movie burns through

a lot of the novella’s plot

early, then introduces a new

character — Becky’s

boyfriend, Travis (Harrison

Gilbertson) — and a time-

looping element that allows

Natali to circle back and

bring in pieces of King and

Hill’s story he skipped the

first time.

But despite the hand-

some Craig Wrobleski cine-

matography, and despite a

typically fine performance

by Patrick Wilson as the lost

kid’s dad — slowly going

mad in the bush — “In the

Tall Grass” runs too long

and repeats itself too much

to be as gripping as its

source material. Turns out

there’s a limit to how scary

weeds can be.

HARRISONGilbertson, from left, Laysla De Oliveira
and Avery Whitted get lost and terrified in a field.

Netflix

REVIEW

Creeping terror

tires itself out

Plants can scare only

so much in adaptation

of King and son’s ‘In

the Tall Grass.’

By Noel Murray

‘Genèse’

In French with English

subtitles

Not rated

Running time:2 hours, 10

minutes

Playing:Laemmle Royal,

West Los Angeles

‘In the Tall

Grass’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 41

minutes

Playing:Available on

Netflix