LE GARAGISTE

Adrien Dubé owns a garage in Trois-Pistoles with his 74-year-old father, Roland. On the wait list for a kidney transplant, weary of the thrice-weekly dialysis he’s had to endure at the hospital for the last five years, Adrien finally agrees to hire some help. Enter Raphaël, a resourceful young man who’d been helping his mother hold down the family farm in Saint-Pacôme. However, his arrival in the small town shakes things up for Adrien, particularly his 20-year relationship with Anna, which now falters. The first indie feature from Renée Beaulieu, a screenwriting professor at the Université de Montréal who wrote the screenplay for Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s Ring, Le garagiste turns the gorgeous landscapes of the Bas-Saint-Laurent into a lush set for an intimate family drama punctuated by evocative silences. Backed by Louise Portal, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Nathalie Cavezzali and Michel Dumont, Normand D’Amour delivers a solid, moving portrayal of a man at the edge as he faces a life-changing decision, a tour-de-force of bottled anguish and muted masculinity.