Review of Borderline (2009) by Pascal B — 18 Mar 2008

BORDERLINE (2008).

Directed by Lyne Charlebois.

Starring Isabelle Blais, Angèle Coutu, Jean-Hugues AngladeKiki is a sex addict. She sleeps with her teacher who is 23 years and 2 months older than her. She writes a book inspired by her troubled life, her crazy mom and her grandmother who raised her. She has to cope with her demons but she is barely able to do it cause she is emotionally unstable.Borderline was written by Marie-Sissi Labrèche, inspired by two her her novels, that were kind of based on her own life, even though it was all romanced. Isabelle Blais is great at catching Labrèche's mannerism and sometimes misconnection with reality. She looks great, she has too, cause she bares it all many times in the film, making it very raw, in some way.Lyne Charlebois's directorial debut deals with interesting issues and tackles them seriously, without judging her main character, which would have been easy to do. It could have fallen into heavy melodrama, and that wouldnt have been good, but Charlebois keeps the focus at the right place. The sex scenes are quite graphic and the entire film seems to be shot with an eye for trashy poetry, which is often the case with movies in Quebec. There are some very clever transitions between the flashbacks, what the character writes in her chapters and her actual life, something, bringing all three worlds in the same shot.The acting is quite good, as I mentionned already, Isabelle Blais is great, but thats no surprise. She is totally commited to her characters and delivers the good. Sylvie Drapeau as her crazy mom is a bit over the top and sometimes laughable, but in the other hand, Angèle Coutu is amazing as the grandmother. Jean-Hugues Anglade does a pretty good job as the University teacher and Pierre-Luc Brilliant is great, as usual, showing all his range, in a smaller but important part.Borderline is kind of plotless cause we dont care wether she'll get to write her book or not, what we care about is for the character to overcome her fears and start living better. There is a lot of full frontal nudity in the film, its never exploitive but a bit explicit,after a while it gets a bit uncomfortable and that would actually be my only complain about this film along with some of the editing. I did enjoy it very much. Good cinematography.