Really Surprised!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Boris Without Beatrice revolves around Boris Malinovsky, a well-off individual whose wife is suffering from an unknown illness. All we know Beatrice's illness is that it's keeping her in her bed, isolated, without her really having any concept of the world around her. For much of the film we're treated to seeing Boris' many faults, from the way he sees others of lesser means beneath him, to the affairs he has with a pair of women, and the way he's become disconnected from his daughter. This is all turned around when a mysterious letter arrives and he meets a man who tells him to change. Is it God? It's not made clear, but it certainly leaves an impact on Boris and how he lives.By the end of the movie I was questioning whether what I saw was as straightforward as it seemed. Was any of it real, or was it in Boris' head? I'm not sure I know the answer to that question, but James Hyndman, as Boris, and Denis Cote directing did enough to make me watch and be intrigued the whole way through.