We choose our friends, we don’t choose our family, says the proverb. However, sometimes you regret your choices. This is no doubt what the three high school friends of Vanishing linesbased on the grating play by Catherine Chabot (Clean slate, In the field of love), who co-wrote the screenplay with Émile Gaudreault (From father to cop, Liar) and production with Miryam Bouchard (My own circus).
Natives of Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, Audrey (Catherine Chabot), Valérie (Léane Labrèche-Dor) and Sabina (Mariana Mazza) have lost sight of each other. The first, who has not left her hometown, files tax returns and lives with Jonathan (Maxime de Cotret), who manages his small plumbing business. Engaged for five years, she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to marry this too predictable guy for whom a plaid shirt is synonymous with elegance.
A drooling columnist at Radio-Canada, the second lives as an open couple with Paul-Émile (Mickaël Gouin), a sociology lecturer at the university. Eco-friendly, they ride bicycles and don’t want children. For her part, the third, who has not forgotten her modest origins, has made her mark in the world of finance and has recently been seeing Amber (Victoria Diamond), a trendy English-speaking artist.
Eco-anxiety, job insecurity, polyamory and parenting are at the heart of the casual discussions of these thirty-somethings. Very early on, we feel the fear of being judged by the other two and of falling back into the toxic dynamics of their trio. By her staging where she highlights each actor, Miryam Bouchard perfectly translates the false lightness and the real feverishness of the reunion. Thanks to fluid camera movements, the group appears to be a six-headed entity moving through a scorching Montreal to the tunes of Montreal artists — including Drinking in LA, by Bran Van 3000. Helping alcohol, tempers flare, tongues loosen. Then a hailstorm suggests that the worst is yet to come.
Strong exchanges
After the opening of Amber’s exhibition and a drunken karaoke evening, a cocktail dinner follows in Sabina’s luxurious apartment. Under the glassy gaze of Amber’s dog, which evokes the blind seer Tiresias, the evening, increasingly anxiety-provoking, will take on apocalyptic accents.
In the vein of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee), Beautiful Sundays (Marcel Dube), Bottoms up (Francois Archambault), The God of Carnage (Yasmina Reza) and, of course, The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand) Vanishing lines is based on tense relationships between friends, where discomfort, misunderstandings and resentment give rise to epic verbal jousting.
Biting their teeth into Catherine Chabot’s jubilant lines, the actors play their characters with great ease and share a palpable chemistry. If all shine in the last tableau, where the masks fall with brilliance, Victoria Diamond and Mariana Mazza each offer a powerful moment of anthology.
A sharp portrait of Generation Y, Vanishing lines however, has everything to please other generations, especially the representatives of Generation X, who will recognize the anxieties and questions of their youth. Beyond the themes tackled with corrosive humor and formidable lucidity, Vanishing lines focuses on friendship, the one we question because we refuse to grow old or see others change, the one that reminds us that nothing is as before, the one where we no longer want to hold the role we played there when we were younger. However, friendship breakups often hurt more than love breakups.
As the evening gets out of hand, nature reasserts itself and reminds the protagonists that despite money, diplomas, notoriety and material comfort, they are all equal in the face of an uncertain future. It is up to the spectators to guess if they will remain united or will each turn in on themselves.