Denys Arcand has made some of my all time favourite films. I have waited for him to make another good one for a while but he seems stuck in a rut and in Testament he shows glimmers of having something interesting to say, but mostly just ends up going through the motions. The film is a comedy that is rarely funny, a romance sapped of all emotion, and a commentary that has, well... nothing to say.
There are moments, when Girard's character is reflecting in his head about being in the final stages of his life, and his final finding of some spark and desire to live a bit longer, which are quite moving and lovely. But so much of the film feels like a tired old man shaking his first and screaming get off my lawn.
His plot centres around a controversy over an old mural in a care facility. Arcand never attempts to paint any side of the issue with any sort of realism, instead reducing all involved to silly caricatures which don't reflect any thing like how these debates go down in the real world. I kept imagining how fascinating his story and central characters would be if he had spent time putting them in the heart of a realistic debate where they had to reflect on the actual issues and positions. Instead the side characters in Testament are all simplistic buffoons whose views are so silly no one could take them seriously.
But he struggles with the relationships he is trying to build here too. Never once did I believe in the love story being told here, a love story that becomes such an afterthought in its own movie, that there are developments that feel only tacked on without the film doing anything to earn it. A character and her daughter are estranged. We see the daughter once railing against ever seeing her mother again. Then she just shows up happy to see her. None of it felt real.
Maybe Arcand still has another great film in him. As I said, there are slight moments here that show he might. But Testament is not it.
Testament
Starring: Rémy Girard, Sophie Lorain
Writer/Director: Denys Arcand
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