Catch and Release: for Laurence Leboeuf ***

Laurence Leboeuf is playing the role of Keely, Quebec the victim of a kidnapping. The young woman is pregnant after a rape is found on a small island in Northern Ontario with Do, her jailer and guardian angel.

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15 July 2020

Updated on July 17, 2020 at 4: 21

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Catch and Release: for Laurence Leboeuf ***

Eric Moreault

The Sun

CRITICAL / adaptation of a play to the screen always remains a risky business. Especially if it is a closed — achieving ends often fail to scale. Catch and Release is no exception, in spite of his empathy, a feminist, its anti-fundamentalism, pro-life dialogue and well-crafted. Fortunately, there are two performers, in particular, Laurence Leboeuf, to maintain our interest.

The actress plays the role of Keely, Quebec the victim of a kidnapping. The young woman is pregnant after a rape is found on a small island in Northern Ontario with Do (Nancy Palk), his jailer and guardian angel. She is held there against his will by a group of pro-life extremist who wants to prevent an abortion…

After this start-up nebula — we do not know the circumstances of the kidnapping, not more, than the actual intentions of the captors, the story borrows a schematic narrative fairly predictable.

Everything between the two women, at first sight. Keely, shiny, and voluntary, has the youth drooling and rebellious. Do, a reserved and pious, brandished his faith as armor. The first does not hesitate to point out the contradictions of the second. But they will soon realize that they have in common to be ripped off in life.

The taming will be progressive, even if Keely plays sometimes the provocation, especially with his body — a little to the Swimming Pool (2003) François Ozon.

But it is without counting on the menacing Robert, the brains of the operation, which regularly supplies by boat on this island where the duo lives totally confined…

Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert have started their career as a documentary filmmaker, activist (Thank God I’m a Lesbian, My Feminism) before venturing into the fiction, while remaining close to their favourite themes. The main protagonist of Finn’s Girl (2007) runs an abortion clinic.

The adaptation of the play by Jane Martin, which was nominated for a Pulitzer in 1994, fell under the direction, and the bias obvious. The pair even managed to give us a dose of sympathy to Do despite the rigid religious. However, they do little in the shade with Robert, a man worrying not only because of the rhetoric and dogma, but also his temperament and blood controlling.

The filmmakers succeed even to give us a dose of sympathy for the Od (Nancy Palk) despite the rigidity of religion.

GAME THEORY MOVIE

The filmmakers made every effort to avoid the repetition of visual, including some beautiful plans submarines. The resource-conscious use of a subjective camera scope, to reflect the distress of Kelly, proves to be successful.

The main weakness lies rather in the tension-changing the appearance suspense of the film. Not to mention their inability to generate an actual membership and actual thoughts on the topics discussed.

This is not the fault of the efforts of Laurence Leboeuf, very invested in her role. The actress has a strong presence, even natural (it plays without makeup). Each of its replicas takes place easily and he just has very little to do to pass the states of the soul of Kelly. That in itself is the main reason to see Catch and Release, without reducing a work that has its qualities, including that of offering a female point of view on issues that touch closely to the second sex.

Catch and Release is available in video-on-demand

The generic

Rating: ***

Title: Catch and Release

Genre: psychological drama

Directors: Dominique Cardona, Laurie Colbert

Actors: Laurence Leboeuf, Nancy Palk

Duration: 1h18

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