Note that Quebec’s Philippe Lesage retains the hypnagogic mood of his 2015 feature Les Démons without relying on that film’s overt horrors. Genesis is still of a piece with that outstanding debut, mining the haunted vibe of youth inside a bleached-out, weirdly nonspecific period, complete with Smiths posters on the dorm-room wall of gangly, extrovert teen, Guillaume (Théodore Pellerin). It’s significant to his undoing that Guillaume bonds over Morrissey’s lyrics with a 14-year-old newcomer to the all-male school, while back home, boy-crazy half-sister Charlotte (Ava’s Noée Abita) learns the full measure of the pleasure-pain principle while two-timing a couple of unfairly matched dudes. A coda set at summer camp with entirely different characters would seem pointless if it didn’t express so gracefully the magical dawn already curdled into pre-adult calamity for both Guillaume and Charlotte. Extra credit for the John Maus on the (excellent) soundtrack, not to mention the amusing if random shot at francophone rocker Jean Leloup. Look for it in Canada’s Top 10 2018 or I’ll eat my Hatful of Hollow

Published September, 2018