AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) (Canada 2025) **
Directed by Anne Emond

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Director Anne Emond tackles male trauma with her forty-year-old protagonist suffering from insecurity and a need for acceptance.  Despite his regimen of exercise and antidepressants, Adam (Hivon), proprietor of a Quebec kennel, cannot help but despair over the ever-escalating climate catastrophe. One night, while feeling especially hopeless, he calls the tech support line for his newly acquired therapeutic desk lamp, believing it to be a crisis help line. He gets lucky: on the other end is Tina (Perabo), who's relieved to talk about something more meaningful than assembly instructions.  This is a romantic comedy tackled with nuances and from a different angle.  But Director Emond’s pace is too slow to match the premise.  The pair connect over their shared existential worries and, when an earthquake rocks Tina's Ontario town, Adam takes the opportunity to drive there and help this woman he's never seen. Environmental dread brought these two together on the phone, so it's only fitting that a natural disaster prompts them to meet.  This sets the couple off on a path of romance and adventure.

The film is a strange love story of sorts.   Director Emond gets her character, Adam, to cry, mope, and come to terms with himself.  Her female characters, those that Adam encounters, like Tina and his kennel helper, have stronger personalities.  It is hard to identify with a protagonist with self-worth issues, but the film feels too like one with too much of a female slant.

AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) premiered at Cannes this year, followed by a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.  It opens this week in theatres.

Trailer: