The air is thick in Emmanuel Tardif’s languorous and often perplexing In Broad Daylight, a drama in theory but more of an exercise in mood and mystery in practice. Since his debut feature, Speak Love, in 2019, he has made a habit of creating enigmatic studies and his latest is no different. Centred around four members of an affluent family who have shut themselves away to keep news of their teenage daughter’s unexpected motherhood from spreading, the film depicts their straining relationships in the tense environs of their palatial home. Tardif’s film excels in creating a distinct atmosphere, even if its pace and length might leave much to be desired for those hoping for more reward from its elusive narrative.
Hélène (Amaryllis Tremblay) lives in a vast family home with her father (David Savard), mother (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman), brother (Elijah Patrice), and unnamed new-born son. The house exists in a peculiar hinterland of tedium, frustration, and torpor in the summer heat. Each family member seems to circle the others, interactions limited to surly exchanges pregnant with resentment. Hélène’s apparent disinterest in caring for her baby sees bitterness simmering. A call from a cousin (Marianne Fortier) makes it clear that the family’s seclusion has lasted for eight months – since the birth – and that not even close relations have been confided in, a tale of their daughter’s hospitalisation told instead. When Hélène announces that she will be going to visit her cousin and then instead goes in search of the baby’s father, Antonin, with whom she had a one-night stand, the potential to complete upset the household’s delicate balance is palpable.
For much of the film’s runtime, the dialogue is oblique. Members of the family continually speak in ambiguity and riddles, often going around in circles, revelling in pretentious sleight of tongue. The perplexing effect is clearly intentional – even other characters become annoyed with the insistently cryptic wordplay – and presumably a marker of their isolation, both physical and financial, from the mundanity of everyday, straightforward conversation. The one time in which this affectation begins to falter is when Hélène meets up again with Antonin. Their initial interactions follow the familiar formula, and he grows impatient with her vague patter, but as they warm up to one another, so Hélène seems to transform into a more typical 17-year-old, flirting with a crush.
It is in these scenes – in which Hélène and Antonin once again have sex in his car, pulled over in the same layby as that night seventeen months ago – that the film allows the audience to breathe a little, and connect more with the characters. When Hélène subsequently turns up in a church and asks the priest if she can borrow a phone charger, they have an equally naturalistic conversation. Tremblay’s performance in these moments, and the way they contrast to her detached and almost spiteful demeanour previously, is a revelation, and when she returns to the nest the entire context feels shifted by this peek behind her façade. The other members of the family all have slightly more surreal roles to fulfil, shifting on a dime from apathetic to wracked by worry and guilt, but they all manage to make these swings feel at least cogent.
In the final moments, Hélène makes a claim to Antonin that, if true, calls into question the veracity of the film’s entire first half. Of course, she may once be playing with words; teasing, taunting. She also might be attempting, for the first time in the film, to be considerate of someone else’s emotional state and to save him from a pain she understands all too well. Equally, the possibility that the film is the result of an unreliable narrator, a mass delusion constructed as a coping mechanism, or a lucid dream in the heat of a gleaming summer, might better explain some of the more confusing moments.
Director, screenplay: Emmanuel Tardif
Cast: David Savard, Amaryllis Tremblay, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Elijah Patrice, Marianne Fortier, Jean-Simon Leduc
Producers: Emmanuel Tardif, Léa Roy
Cinematography: François Herquel
Editing: Antoine Foley-Dupont
Sound: François Lacasse
Music: Julien Racine
Art Direction: Geneviève Boiteau
Production company: Les Rapailleurs (Canada)
Venue: Karlovy Vary (Proxima Competition)
In French
151 minutes
