VOD Review - Genèse (Genesis)

Philippe Lesage is a Canadian filmmaker who has named this film after the first book in the Bible. Given that his film is about a bunch of teenagers falling in love and trying to date people, it's a pretty ballsy title. Unless it's ironic, I don't get why because the relationships depicted here aren't as Biblical. Perhaps the idea is that to teenagers these relationships are Biblical, meaning they're life and death, creation and destruction. That perspective doesn't appear to be the ultimate takeaway here. The point seems to be that we're supposed to be swept up in the romance of it and then collapse at the heartbreak of it. Unfortunately, this film doesn't sell us too much on the relationships. These relationships aren't developed. Basically, a young person looks at another young person and that's all love is in this film. There seems to be not much more than physical attraction.

Lesage's film juggles the romantic entanglements of three teenagers. It allows for this film to be a diverse look at various experiences. This is good, but juggling three characters and stories only lends to short shrift to the depiction of the relationships. It's not as if there isn't enough time to depict three relationships. Lesage simply wastes time with a lot of wordless, musical sequences that drag for a long time here and there that eat up time that could have gone to developing the relationships. As a result, there are characters who are together or who get together and there's no deeper reasoning as to why. Again, it's just superficial, either physical attraction or random encounters that aren't examined or probed. Lesage just presents them without much context.

Théodore Pellerin (On Becoming a God in Central Florida and Boy Erased) stars as Guillaume Bonnet, a high school student in Quebec, Canada. He could be considered the class clown. He's the kid who's always acting out. When the teacher isn't in the room, he's on top of the desk, singing and carousing. When the teacher is in the room, he's always making snide remarks, either under his breath or out loud. He also teases certain classmates. He occasionally gets into trouble. His school is a boarding school where he sleeps in a dorm that's less like a college and more like a military barrack or hostel where there's no privacy but just bunk beds side by side in an open room.

It seems as if Guillaume is interested in his best friend, Nicolas, played by Jules Roy Sicotte (depicted above on the left). At a party, Guillaume is by himself while everyone else is paired up. He approaches Nicolas who gives him an extended hug. Later, Nicolas puts his hand on Guillaume's rear end, accidentally or not. This perhaps triggers Guillaume to think that he could make a move on Nicolas in return. Nicolas plays hockey for the school. First, Guillaume tries to join the hockey team but that doesn't work out. Later, in a public coming-out, Guillaume proclaims Nicolas as his first love. His coming-out scene represents the best bit of context that goes toward explaining why Guillaume is in love with Nicolas. It's another problematic, narrative about a gay guy falling for a straight guy, which is possibly a commentary Lesage is making about teenagers these days whose sexualities are possibly more fluid, but at least it's something. The other stories here don't bring as much as Lesage brought to Guillaume's story.

Noée Abita co-stars as Charlotte, the apparent sister to Guillaume. We see them sitting in the back of a car together, talking to adults in the front seat. The dynamic, though not explicit, suggests that they are siblings. Yet, we see no other domestic scenes between them that would really confirm their being brother and sister. It's assumed that she's in school too, but we don't see her in class. She might not be in school actually because the only scenes with her is either her with her girlfriends at a bar drinking beers or her hanging out with her boyfriend presumably at his apartment.

At first, we see her with a boyfriend around her age, maybe older. He's a photographer named Maxime. Here, we don't get really any context or much exploration beyond the surface of her relationship with this guy. We don't know how long they've been together, where they met or much depth into their lives together. His suggestion of an open relationship immediately sends her off. Later, she hooks up with some random guy at the bar where her and her friends go to drink and dance. Yet, it's not clear if we even get the random guy's name. Again, beyond just basic, physical attraction, we learn nothing about their relationship. Presumably, they're dating, but we don't get much of their conversations. It's not even clear what the random guy does for work.

Édouard Tremblay-Grenier plays Félix, the final person whose love life is depicted here. He doesn't have any relation or any connection to Guillaume and Charlotte. Lesage simply wanted to portray a teenage boy and girl discovering each other at a summer camp. One of the camp counselors is played by Brett Dier (Jane the Virgin). Yet, other than seeing this camp counselor struggle with speaking French, which is the dominant language of all the billingual Canadians here, there's nothing much to takeaway from Félix's story either. In some ways, we get more than in Charlotte's story or at least we trade the rejection and trauma that can come from adult relations with the excitement and frustration of young people discovering love, but, there's nothing beyond those surface emotions.

We don't really get anything about Béatrice, the girl whom fancies Félix, so I didn't see much of a point that would make this film last any longer in my mind. It's certainly not going to stick in my mind like other foreign-language films involving teenage love stories like Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), Heartstone (2017) and I Am Jonas (2018). I was even more moved by the brief romance in Big Time Adolescence (2020) than the one here.

Not Rated but contains nudity and graphic sexuality.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 10 mins.

Available on Dekkoo and other VOD platforms.