"Spike Everything" Review: Ridiculous, More Than Quebec Comedy

Most of us involuntarily limit our daily interactions with constant problems in the world, just to maintain our basic sanity. But it's not Adam (Patrick Hivon), who is the instantly lovely leader of Anneémond's delicate (sometimes boring) ridiculous Quebec tragedy "Everything Peak". It’s not that Adam is trapped in dysfunctional ruts, from opening his soul to every global disaster. On the surface, he was together: living in a small town in Montreal, retaining a modest but orderly home, specializing in running a local kennel full of sweet dogs, and so on. Despite this, there was something in his soul, something that he seemed unable to solve.

In Émond's weird story, flirting with surrealism, you can't help but be overly sensitive to Adam's. He is one of those incurable good people you immediately want to protect, a pair of kind dog eyes filled with the urgent anxiety of Hivon's deep human performance navigation. Given Adam's day after day on Earth's expiration day and his fellow countrymen's indifference to the cause of emergency environmental, it's anyone's guess how he keeps his head above the water. But despite his indestructible father Eugène (Gilles Renaud), he was reluctant to share his concerns, and in the kennel assistant (Élizabeth Mageren (Élizabeth Mageren) (élizabeth Mageren), who makes the most of her unexplored comics), his assistant freely manipulates Adam on her will.

There is no doubt that his dog is very helpful in his crisis of existence, just like human best friend. Nevertheless, when his canine company and therapist proved insufficient, he ordered treatment lamps to provide additional support. In the best and most interesting scenes of "Peak Everything", the movie could have used a sense of humor - when he dials the support line of the light, he encounters the chipper Tina (Piper Perabo) on the phone, thinking that the manufacturer also provides emotional support on the side. But it turns out that Tina is just ordinary customer technical support, maybe a bit too much to grasp Adam's problem.

Despite the initial misunderstanding, the two encounter the serendipity of chance, and Émond briefly makes the audience wonder if Tina is real or we are near Spike Jonze's "her." Émond lightly laughs at this suggestion through her voice design choices—there is almost a mechanical sweetness and shocking auditory clarity—and Perabo’s otherworldly voice performance until we meet her.

"Spike Everything" becomes very interesting and it gets getting earlier and earlier when it turns out we should bring most things to the movie with face-to-face value. (Tina on the one hand is real.) Nevertheless, when Adam talks to Tina, Emand listens to the shocking thunderstorm on the phone while the earthquake threatens her safety. Granted, the plot is shaky from now on, especially when Adam and Tina become part of the inexplicable drug bust, which can hurt the story. Once we meet Tina's family - she's married and has children - the script feels accidentally silly and not cooked well through the detours brought by these new characters. There is a subtle suggestion that Tina's marriage happiness may not be all, and she needs the opportunity to connect like Adam. But for the most part, Tina is still a frustrating question mark.

Émond is more successful elsewhere, mocking a sad undercurrent that is below the film's shiny and beautiful lens surface. The ERA fusion of production design (you can’t tell which decade we’ve entered without the technology and smart devices in the movie), complementing the story’s ethereal feeling, while the site juxtaposes with industrial plants and smoking chimneys, echoing Adam’s split headspace. Meanwhile, even though Emond uses a variety of haunting side characters and abandoned situational comedy, his dreamy snowfall tour, the meditative landscape often takes root in a quieter setting.

You do wonder if the overcrowded feeling of “Spike Everything” involuntarily mimics the phenomenon referred to by the title – a unique 21st century crisis when humans and our planet reach everything limits through overconsumption. These characters often feel like they have encountered the end of the narrative, but they still move on and over-await for overdue welcome – sometimes even betray their own belief system in the process. (A inexplicable scene at the end is related to natural disasters, and Adam's beloved dog is a perfect example.) If only this movie is disciplined, it can be reversed in some of its thematic ambitions surrounding romance, action, comedy, and existentialism, and know how to quit while leading the way.