As his personal and professional life falls apart, Mathieu is on the verge of exploding. One day, led by a deer who seems to show him the way, he enters the forest behind his house… never to come out again.
By choosing to follow several dramatic arcs at the same time, while the central figure is almost absent from the film, the director offers a work without much tension. Above all, it is difficult to become attached to the characters, whom we only know on the surface. Each of them represents a cliché – the angry boss who gets lost in his work, the good guy who lacks ambition – which means that we identify very little with their existential questions. And we are little touched by their distress, except perhaps in the face of the loneliness of the father (Jackie Berroyer).
In the role of Catherine, Mathieu’s wife, Suzanne Clément has a very thin score. She spends the first part of the film looking for her husband, shouting his name all the time, then answering the question everyone asks her: “Where is Mathieu?” – In the forest. »
Her character then unfolds further, and the actress gives her what nuance she can, despite her inconsistencies – let’s say that Catherine is difficult to follow and so is the script. And for the Quebec public who are watching STAT daily, the French accent that the actress adopts in the film, which we do not blame her for, creates a real cognitive dissonance.
Elsewhere if I’m there is intended to be a fanciful and funny film, despite the dark side of the subject. But we hardly laugh at the drift of the characters – the nervous breakdowns of Mathieu’s boss, Guy (Jean-Luc Bideau), for example, are more unbearable than anything else. Just like the procrastination of Stéphane (Samir Guesmi), which is much more awkward than amusing.
Fantasy and lightness are found more on the side of the lake where Mathieu took refuge. The latter lives in a kind of bliss, catches fish with his bare hands and converses with birds, a bit like in a story. For each scene that takes place there, the screen changes size and becomes almost square, and the colors are more vibrant – the water is literally turquoise! This little surrealist side is always put in opposition to the gray and noisy reality, but the process, if interesting, ends up being repetitive. And not very subtle.
At the end, after a night of torrential rain, each character will experience an enlightenment. This is perhaps the message of this film, which invites us to reconnect with the world, but also to face ourselves and others. The final scene, which takes place in a “real world” with suddenly vibrant colors, also reminds us that everything is often a question of perspective: even the dullest reality can become luminous.
A great lesson, and a great idea, but at the end of a film without much tone which will not leave many traces.
Indoors
Whimsical comedy
Elsewhere if I’m there
Francois Pirot
With Jérémie Rénier, Suzanne Clément,
Jean-Luc Bideau, Jackie Berroyer
1:43 a.m.