After the wokies scram, the trads descend with Zimmers

Denys Arcand's Testament

Denys Arcand’s latest is absolutely worth seeing. And here’s a thing that stands out: it’s Canadian. Talking about contemporary Canada in the year of 2023 that will be recognizable to everyone living here. I can’t remember the last time I encountered that on film. Philippe Falardeau’s My Internship in Canada seven years ago? I’m bottling the feeling up. (I Like Movies and Blackberry were good this year, but they are period pieces.) 

Retired archivist who still works two days a week and lives alone in a stylish retirement home, septuagenarian Jean-Michel Bouchard (Rémy Girard, charming as ever and never seen without a three-piece suit) is just about to give up on life. Resigned to spending the rest of his days observing his neighbours and taking gentle walks, he’s quietly contemplating the end. Because he lives in a Montreal and a Canada where no one reads any more or knows any history, he is invited to a Quebec literary award ceremony by mistake, on account of his name sounding close enough to Michel Marc Bouchard’s. Arcand’s satirizing of literary and cultural institutions begins with that gala, where four out of six award recipients are somewhere on the Eve Ensler/Naomi Wolf/Vagina Celebration continuum, plus one hijabi.