Neighbours

The questions of how loud one can party is tempered by bourgeois infiltrations as a rowdy fraternity moves in next door to a married couple in Nicholas Stoller's Neighbours.

The fraternity is well versed in the Dionysian arts.

Their goal is to throw a brazen bash nutso enough to ensure their enshrinement on their wall of fame.

Their neighbours, the Radners, are not impressed.

Engaged in the practice of child-rearing, and hoping to maximize what they can of a good night's sleep, they utilize logic and persuasion in an attempt to famish the insatiability.

Their plan backfires however, leading them to employ alternative methods to achieve their sought after repose.

What follows is a diabolical exchange of quintessential quid pro quo, devious in its conceptual understatements, wherein the past congenitally confronts history.

Robust and adroitly wound.

This isn't a typical frat-boy romp.

Residing in its reels are unexpected lessons regarding the cultivation of one's career and the absurdity of dipsomanic progressions.

Teams frat and bourgeois are therefore divided into the successful and the stumbling, as the mayhem imbues.

Neighbours is somewhat tame in its gambits, but these tame gambits lay a reasonably ecstatic foundation, upon which multiple avenues of inquiry merge, to simultaneously question while enabling.

Embligmatic clues.

It's difficult to say who's having more fun.

La sacrée

Fertility. Structure. Beer.

Dominic Desjardins's La sacrée has it all, and as its lighthearted romantic-comedic aura ferments, a jovial buzz is effervescently disseminated.

The Franco-Ontarian town of Fort Amiable has seen better days. The economy has yet to rebound from the closure of the local canoe factory and while the local residents remain upbeat, they still hold serious reservations regarding their future.

Enter François Labas (Marc Marans), son of the former canoe factory's owner who is blamed for the undesired closure. He seeks to wed a wealthy cosmetics heiress (Marie Turgeon as Sofia Bronzeman) but must impregnate her before wedding bells can ring. Unfortunately, he's sterile, and broke, and in danger of having his intricate web of devious lies exposed, thereby spoiling his plans for the unforeseen, and leaving him blindly tethered to the unknown.

Can the legendary La sacrée beer, locally brewed by the residents of Fort Amiable in the past and reputed to actively assist in the reproductive process, reinvigorate the lads and facilitate his dreams?

Or will he lose his favourite game and be turned out in the streets with nothing but credit card debt and incomparable charm to sustain him?

As he perseveres.

A picturesque portrait of a resilient conman, La sacrée provides opportunity for the dynamic while distributing limits to their productivity. Presenting a cheerful cast of sprightly characters, examining the marketing potential of the clarified anglicisme, suggesting that love can be truly exciting if and only if it builds upon a volatile foundation, and consistently transitioning from one pristine Northern Ontario scene to another, La sacrée enlivens the traditional struggling small town narrative, while thoroughly making use of the sacrament of confession.

And the supporting cast is given plenty of room to manoeuvre as their innocent hopes reflect a cohesive pastoral communal ideal.

The first feature comedy to be made in Ontario entirely in French.