One enduring storytelling technique is to place some characters in a cage and watch them combat it out. There’s a purpose so many mysteries, thrillers and horror films happen in shut quarters: Lockdowns have a approach of turning individuals into lab animals. And regardless of the trigger — nature, nurture or screenwriting contrivance — when characters are caught collectively, they usually gnaw on each other, whether or not they’re on a lifeboat, in a lodge or on a personal island.
The studied drama “Who by Fireplace” from the Québecois writer-director Philippe Lesage takes place in a Canadian wilderness space that’s as swooningly stunning as it’s expediently distant. Set over a blurry few days, the story largely unfolds in and round a waterfront property, a slice of paradise so remoted that guests arrive by seaplane. There, outdated pals and new acquaintances join. They learn, take heed to music, dance a bit, and snigger and shout over dinners full of wine and discuss. Amid the levity and Lesage’s heavy concepts about males and masculinity, additionally they take pleasure in nature and, at occasions, attempt to dominate it and each other.
Lesage has a terrific eye, and he opens the film with a grabber: a hypnotic shot of an outdated, boxy Mercedes alone on a freeway within the close to distance, a sequence of droning digital notes rising and falling on the soundtrack. Because the automobile passes miles of dense, mountainous forest, Lesage retains the automobile steadily positioned on the picture’s vanishing level, which retains your gaze equally pinned. Outwardly, the setup appears to be like acquainted (you may be following pals in your personal automobile) but the absence of extraneous sounds — there’s no wind, no whirring engine — provides the entire thing a dreamy, considerably eerie timelessness. Regardless of the interval, some old school prospers and the absence of cellphones counsel that this can be a reminiscence piece.
The automobile belongs to Albert (Paul Ahmarani), a screenwriter who’s en path to a pal’s home together with his grownup daughter, Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré), his youthful son, Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon), and Max’s pal Jeff (Noah Parker). The proprietor of the distant getaway is Blake (Arieh Worthalter, an efficient reside wire), a profitable director with an Oscar on a shelf and a aircraft out entrance. Blake’s baggage proves heavier than his guests’: He has a lifeless spouse, an unwieldy ego and a fraught previous with Albert. When the 2 outdated pals meet, it’s all smiles and bear hugs. Earlier than lengthy, although, everyone seems to be aloft in Blake’s aircraft and headed for some emotional, psychological and non secular bloodletting.
