Latest news with #PeakEverything
CBC
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
It's the end of the world and Sudbury, Ontario is 'the last romantic city left on earth'
In Anne Émond's Peak Everything (Amour Apocalypse in French), a lonesome Montrealer struggles with depression. Adam, a kennel owner played by Patrick Hivon, is staring down the end. He's often listening to the violent storms or earthquakes caused by the climate crisis raging just outside his window, or over the other end of a phone call. Or perhaps those sounds are more impressionistic, coming from Adam's own emotional turbulence. His crippling anxiety over the state of the world is at war with a tragic resignation. Adam fears the titular apocalypse. But what he's even more afraid of is his own state of mind – that maybe he couldn't even be bothered to save himself if given the chance. That is until the right woman comes along. Peak Everything is a romantic comedy that premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival. It's also an expression of writer and director Émond's own battle with depression during the recent pandemic, an event that for many of us felt like the end of the world. "It was brutal," says Émond, recalling that period. "I had more time. More loneliness. I started to read articles, listen to podcasts and I was like, 'oh my God, we are fucked.' We are dying. It's almost over.'" A friend gave Émond a therapeutic lamp to help her cope — a device that packs sunlight in a box to help cheer up, in particular, Canadians who tend to really feel the January blues. "I put it on, under my [sun]glasses," Émond recalls. "And under the light, I started to imagine this love story; this very tender and sweet and fun story to first save myself." We're in Cannes, speaking about depression and apocalyptic conditions, under a canopy on the beach, with sunbathers lounging nearby and yachts overseeing all the action on the C ô te d'Azur in the distance. The festival has always provided a stunning contrast between its glitz, glam and sparkling scenery, and the heavier subject matter its films tend to deal with. On that front, this year's edition, which wraps Sunday, didn't disappoint. Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Lawrence and Rihanna are among the celebs who got the shutterbugs in a frenzy on the red carpet. Meanwhile the films at the festival dealt not only with depression (Peak Everything and Lynne Ramsay's viscerally dire Die, My Love, starring Lawrence and Pattinson) but also police violence and the protests that would erupt around the world (as recounted in French docu-thriller Dossier 137 and satirized in Ari Aster's Eddington) and the ongoing massacre in Gaza (documented in Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk). Émond, who broke out over a decade ago with Nuit #1, another story about a seemingly impossible romance, is cheerily discussing her new film — essentially the French-Canadian answer to Punch-Drunk Love. "One of the greatest films of the past 25 years," says Emond of Paul Thomas Anderson's whimsical love letter to the French New Wave. "I think this film influenced all my films." As with Punch-Drunk Love, Amour Apocalypse begins when its depressed and socially awkward entrepreneur receives a package that magically brings relief to his discordant life. This time it isn't a harmonium but the same therapeutic lamp that inspired Émond's story. Adam fancifully forges a connection with a woman named Tina who answers the therapeutic lamp's tech support line, which he mistakenly but serendipitously rings looking for emotional support. For much of the movie, Tina (Piper Perabo) is just a voice on the other line, like a fantasy figure recalling Punch-Drunk Love 's biggest flaw. All the women in that earlier film are thinly drawn, existing only in relation to Adam Sandler's Barry Egan, as either emotional terrorists (Barry's sisters or the phone sex scam operator), or as the tenderly comforting object of affection played by Emily Mortimer, who enters the scene solely to rescue the main character from his anxieties. Émond is happy to play along in the same mode in Peak Everything, where the women in the film are either objects of affection or frustration, but only up to a point. "I invented this woman to help me to get better," Émond says, of the Tina character who we gradually discover is married, has children and is messy enough to leave everything behind to pursue a wildly passionate romance to satisfy her own emotional needs. "At some point, I was feeling better," Émond continues. "And I wanted to tell a true love story. In a true love story, it's two real people, with their problems, flaws and everything. Tina cannot just be a nice voice — sweet and everything. So I was like, 'No, no. She's a mother. Her husband drinks too much. She has problems. I thought it was interesting also that a woman that is 48 years old, can fall in love, go crazy for a man and leave everything behind." There's another layer to the reckless abandon. Émond doesn't just explore this romance as a hopeful balm during a climate crisis, but also as a Canadian allegory for Anglo-Franco unity. Adam is from Montreal. He soon discovers that Tina, this sensual and near mystical voice he hears on the other end of the phone, is actually in Sudbury. "The last romantic city in the world," says Émond, chuckling about her cheeky choice of locale. Émond finds a lot of humour in her inter-provincial romance, taking every opportunity to poke fun at not just at the people who populate her whimsical scenarios but also all of Ontario. When Adam pursues Tina, crossing over into Ontario, he's greeted by a giant Moose statue with a sign reading "Open for Business," the provincial slogan introduced by premiere Doug Ford. "It's so funny," Emond says about the cringey greeting, not realizing it was the Ford government who cooked it up. "Every time I come into Ontario, I'm like 'what a punchline.'" Emond makes sure to point out that she ridicules with affection and tenderness — whether the punchline is Ontario or her characters. But she also says the romance at the heart of her movie was meant to conjure a sense of Canadian unity, which feels especially pertinent at this moment. "Canada is funny these days," says Emond. "Since we're becoming the 51st state, we think a lot about what is Canada," she jokes. Émond, who grew up absorbing deeply separatist influences, parses the two solitudes when it comes to Quebec and the rest of Canada, not just in terms of the social and political, but also the cinema. Quebec films rarely depict the rest of Canada, nor do they often open in theatres outside their own province. And that exclusion often feels like a two way street. Rarely do we get a chance to see what Quebec cinema is cooking up in the rest of Canada, unless of course we fly to Cannes, where our national cinema is represented solely by the work of French-Canadians — as is the case at Cannes 2025. Émond's Amour Apocalypse joins Félix Dufour-Laperrière 's Death Does Not Exist and the animated shorts Bread Will Walk and Hypersensibility as the Quebecois films raising a maple leaf in Cannes. And she's happy to have her story about an impossible romance between Anglophones and Francophones be representative of some national unity. "I was like, 'why not,'" says Emond, singing a different tune from her earlier influences. "It's a bilingual country. It feels strange to be saying that."
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Peak Everything' Review: Piper Perabo Headlines a Cute Canadian Rom-Com Imbued With Very Timely Anxieties
With Peak Everything, director Anne Emond (Young Juliet, Nelly) offers a relatable, if somewhat uneven, dark rom-com that suits these uncertain times. Patrick Hivon stars as Adam, a Francophone Quebecois kennel-owner wracked with depression and anxiety about climate catastrophe, who cutely meets Ontarian Tina (Piper Perabo) over the phone when he calls a technical support line. Although wildfires scorch, storms rage and earthquakes shake all around the periphery of the film's plot, these two lonely, early-middle-aged souls can't stop their feelings despite clear impediments to true love like — oops! — the fact that Tina is married. Emond's script deftly contrives a third act that's hopeful but still flecked with genuine despair. More from The Hollywood Reporter Alejandro G. Iñárritu on 25th Anniversary of 'Amores Perros' and Making a "Brutal Comedy" With Tom Cruise Carla Simón on Going Back to the Roots With Cannes Competition Title 'Romería' Jafar Panahi Intends to Keep Up the Fight Via Film: "Even My Closest Friends Had Given up Hope" That gloomy undertow may limit Peak Everything's commercial appeal outside Canada, but its debut in the Directors' Fortnight showcase at Cannes may help boost its offshore prospects. That said, this still feels like a profoundly Canadian film, in the best sort of way: appealingly quirky but tinged with melancholy, imbued with a polite, humanist tolerance for even its most unlikeable supporting characters, and grounded in a strong sense of locality and love for the natural world. Tina's origin story is never revealed — a minor shame, because if only it were mentioned that she's American, like the actor who plays her, the whole film could be seen as an allegory of Canadian-American accord just when such messages are needed most, given the current political climate. At least their romance crosses the Quebec-Ontario border. Adam lives in a small town in the French-speaking province, a terrain that's relatively picturesque although the main road snakes through an area that's clearly seen some serious industrial abuse, leaving the ground devoid of all plant life. Despite his handsome face and fit physique, Adam has seemingly been a bachelor for some time. He's lovelorn enough that he doesn't protest when his vampish young employee Romy (Elizabeth Mageren) suddenly grabs him and insists on a bout of mutual masturbation while they're out walking the dogs Adam cares for at his kennel. The shot of the pack all sitting patiently and looking in one direction, as if observing Adam and Romy getting it on, must have surely been achieved with the promise of treats and lots of commands to 'stay' (or the equivalent in French), but it's adorable all the same. The next day, Romy exploits the situation by coming in late and later deliberately makes Adam uncomfortable by bringing another guy to work to have sex with. Adam's boorish father Eugene (veteran Canadian character actor Gilles Renaud, rocking a ridiculous long-haired 'do) is hardly any comfort, especially as he's the sort of parent who immediately flushes the antidepressants and sleeping pills Adam has just got on prescription down the sink, insisting his son doesn't need any of that. By and by, we learn that Adam's mother may also have been prone to depression, and Emond talks in the press notes about a history of suicide and depression in her own family that partly inspired the plot here. But any sentient human who keeps up with the news just a little bit will get why Adam is suffused with anxiety given the overwhelming cascade of climate-related disasters that seem to increase every day, which he describes in detail to his new therapist. When Adam finds a leaflet that offers a phone number to call for 'support' in the packaging for his new light-therapy lamp, he mistakenly thinks this means emotional not technical support and dials away. This introduces him to Tina, whose dulcet voice and tinkling laugh are immediately soothing, even when she's roughly conforming to the customer-care script she's been given in the call center where she works. A few not-strictly-necessary calls later, the two are sharing personal details and jokes, which means Adam goes into a panic when the line goes suddenly dead one evening. He grabs the keys to his father's car and drives through the night to find Tina over the border, evacuated to a community center after a sudden earthquake has shaken the town. This near-calamity really smells of authorial contrivance to get the two principals to meet in person, while further comic hijinks jerry-rigged to drive the couple further together are no less fragrant. Even so, the chemistry between the leads is persuasive enough to let it all slide as we watch the couple bond back in Quebec, sort of on the run and sort of just coasting in place as they try to work out what to do with their growing affection for one another. At one point, Emond and the leads find a creative, erotic way to show that attraction while the characters stay just within the lines of chastity in a bedroom scene where it's all out in the open but nothing is consummated. Imaginative touches like that go a long way toward ameliorating the film's small but not ignorable flaws, such as its tendency toward sentimentality in the last stretch and the gaping spaces where more character-building needs to be to land the plane safely. Nevertheless, Emond and the cast's comic timing and the palpable sense that the core conceit was borne of a genuine sense of anxiety carries it through. Ditto the grainy warmth of the 35mm cinematography by Olivier Gossot, an old-school touch that literally softens the film's rough edges in the nicest sort of way. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson and ‘Die, My Love' Cast Get Vulnerable About Parenthood: 'I Didn't Know I Could Feel So Much'
The cast of Lynne Ramsay's Die, My Love got vulnerable about how parenthood has changed their lives while speaking at the movie's Sunday press conference. The talent came straight from the Palais premiere Saturday night — where they were recipients of a warm six-minute standing ovation — to The Hollywood Reporter-hosted afterparty at Cannes hotspot Salama. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Phoenician Scheme' Review: A Brilliant Benicio del Toro Leads Wes Anderson's Poignant Narrative Jigsaw Puzzle 'Peak Everything' Director on Getting Personal With Dark Romantic Comedy to "Save Myself" Nicole Kidman Gives Update on 'Practical Magic' Sequel With Sandra Bullock: "It's Fun and Witchy" The film, an adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's 2017 novel of the same name — with the action relocated from France to Montana — was co-written and directed by Scotswoman Ramsay and was co-produced by Lawrence in her most ambitious performance in years. Through the two-hour film, Lawrence plays a new mother (Grace) who develops postpartum depression and begins going in and out of psychosis. Robert Pattinson plays her husband, Jackson, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte play his parents, and Oscar nominee Lakeith Stanfield also stars. Lawrence — mother to two children now — was visibly emotional talking about working with Ramsay on the subject matter. 'It was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what [Grace] would do… Extreme anxiety and extreme depression is isolating. No matter where you are, you feel like an alien, and so it deeply moved me. I've wanted to work with Lynne Ramsay since I saw Ratcatcher (1999) and I was like, 'There's no way.' But we took a chance, and we sent it to her. And I really, I cannot believe that I'm here with you,' said Lawrence as the two embraced. Pattinson said about working with Ramsay: 'I didn't find anything particularly hard. This was someone I've always wanted to work with, and you create an atmosphere on set where I don't need to really describe things as like, hard or easy. It's quite an unusual environment. But when you trust your director so much… you create an aura on set where you're being led in the direction. You don't really know exactly where it is, but to trust the director so much.' Lawrence and Pattinson were asked about how having children (Pattinson shares a child with British star Suki Waterhouse) has changed their careers. 'Having children changes everything,' Lawrence said. 'It changes your whole life, but it's brutal and incredible.' 'I didn't know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion, and they've opened up the world to me. It's almost like a blister or something, so sensitive. So they've changed my life, obviously, for the best, and they've changed me creatively,' said Lawrence. She added, prompting laughter: 'I highly recommend having kids if you want to be an actor.' Said Pattinson: 'I think in the most unexpected way, having a baby gives you the biggest trove of energy and inspiration afterwards.' Lawrence cut in: 'You get energy?' Pattinson continued: 'It's impossible for a guy to answer correctly! I'm just here to support… Ever since she was born, it's reinvigorated the way I approach work and, yeah, you're a completed person.' Ramsay said about finding a way 'in' to Harwicz's novel: 'The subject matter was about postpartum, but it also was intended to be stuck creatively in dreams and fantasies, sex and passion… So I thought, 'Maybe I can do this.' And then I was like, 'Well, I'm going to try it. I don't know if it's going to work.' And then I saw it a bit more like a love story, and that gave me an in.' THR's chief film critic David Rooney called the film a 'jarring character study' and, at times, 'a bit of a trudge.' He continued: 'Ramsay's film is hard to love, but that beautiful visual casts such an intense glow it pulls the whole unwieldy thing together.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sissy Spacek Shares ‘Carrie' Audition Doubts at Spirited ‘Awards Chatter' Podcast Taping in Cannes
Sissy Spacek brought her Texas charm to Cannes, where the Oscar winner regaled an intimate crowd with stories from her 50-plus- year career. The conversation was lively and funny, with the actress discussing her defining role in 1976's Carrie and nearly missing out on Lynne Ramsay's current Cannes title, Die, My Love. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Phoenician Scheme' Review: A Brilliant Benicio del Toro Leads Wes Anderson's Poignant Narrative Jigsaw Puzzle 'Peak Everything' Director on Getting Personal With Dark Romantic Comedy to "Save Myself" Nicole Kidman Gives Update on 'Practical Magic' Sequel With Sandra Bullock: "It's Fun and Witchy" It was all part of the fourth annual live Cannes taping of the Awards Chatter podcast, hosted by Scott Feinberg, THR's executive editor of awards. Spacek first met Carrie director Brian De Palma through her husband, famed production designer Jack Fisk. The night before her audition, she stayed up late, rereading the Stephen King novel it was based upon, and 'feeling very tortured.' She showed up to the audition looking rough, in full Carrie mode. She put Vaseline in her hair and wore a torn dress. After the screen test, she was certain she'd blown her chance. 'I thought, 'He hates me. He'll never want me in his film and I'm not going to get this,' ' she recalled. Her husband was the one who broke the news that she landed the lead role, which would earn her an Oscar nomination. The conversation took place overlooking the Bay of Cannes at the Campari Lounge in the Palais, with the iconic red bitter brand returning for a fourth year as an official partner, continuing its role as curator of aperitivo occasions and celebrating the creativity and passion of visionary filmmakers who shape cinema. Spacek was in Cannes for Die, My Love, in which she plays the mother-in-law to Jennifer Lawrence's character, who is going through postpartum depression. Her agents begged her to meet with director Ramsay, but she declined because she was babysitting her grandkids. When she finally agreed, she couldn't understand the Scottish director's accent, while director Ramsay had trouble understanding her Texas twang. Said Spacek to laughs: 'Fortunately, her producer, Andrea [Calderwood] would explain. I'd look over say, 'What did she say?' So we had a great thing going.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump Calls For 'Major Investigation' Into Springsteen, Beyoncé Appearances at Kamala Harris Rallies
Donald Trump is further escalating his online feud with Bruce Springsteen and other major recording acts, posting a rant on Truth Social early Monday morning calling for a 'major investigation' into Springsteen, Beyoncé and Bono's support for Kamala Harris during her presidential campaign. 'HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT,' Trump wrote in all caps. 'WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN'T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ?' More from The Hollywood Reporter 'American Idol' Season 23 Winner Crowned The Who Parts Ways With Drummer Zak Starkey (Again) 'Peak Everything' Director on Getting Personal With Dark Romantic Comedy to "Save Myself" Trump suggested that Harris had paid for the stars' endorsements 'under the guise of paying for entertainment.' And fitting to the president's fixation on crowd sizes at political events, Trump said the appearances were 'a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds.' 'For these unpatriotic 'entertainers,' this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system,' Trump wrote. In a follow up post, Trump claimed the Harris campaign paid Beyoncé $11 million 'to walk onto a stage, quickly ENDORSE KAMALA, and walk off to loud booing for never having performed, NOT EVEN ONE SONG!' Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles denied similar claims that her daughter was paid $10 million for her appearance back in November, writing on Instagram she 'did not receive a penny.' 'They are not only lying and disrespecting Beyoncé's name but they are trying to further discredit the power of our vice president,' Knowles wrote at the time. Other stars who endorsed Harris and appeared at rallies such as Oprah Winfrey have also denied getting paid. Trump's latest missives come days after the president vaguely threatened Springsteen after the rock star admonished the Trump administration during a concert in the U.K. on Wednesday, telling the crowd that the U.S. is 'currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.' In response, Trump called Springsteen 'adried out 'prune' of a rocker' and said he 'ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that's just 'standard fare'. Then we'll all see how it goes for him!' Springsteen, for his part, hasn't let up, doubling down on his claims about Trump during another U.K. show at Co-Op Live this weekend. 'In my home, they're persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That's happening now,' Springsteen said Saturday in a video captured by the Los Angeles Times. 'In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death. That's happening now. In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
