Steph and his buddies, Piston, Rose, Charles and Marie-Lou are bored.
In the one mill, Acadian town in which they live, the mill has just shut down because of a strike. They all have a lot of time on their hands – especially the boys – and things are getting pretty desperate.
First time director, Rodrigue Jean has done a fantastic job evoking the go-nowhere, do-nothing conundrum of young adults in a small town – lot’s of energy but nowhere to apply it.
Boredom drives their lives. They’re bored so they drink. They’re bored so they fuck. They’re bored so they restart their punk band. They’re bored so they fight. They’re bored so they fuck some more.
If you’re getting the idea that nothing really happens in Jean’s award-winning film, Full Blast, you’re right. If anything were to happen, it would destroy the sense of reality that Jean has created. It is irritating at times, but then maybe that’s the point. This is a slice-of-life movie and they are never plot driven.
Why Jean found it necessary to stick to the go-nowhere realistic plot, when the look of the film is so affected, I don’t know. All five main actors look nothing like small town folks that I’ve ever met. While they are circled by a sea of beer-drinking, truck-driving, parking-lot-fighting hicks, the leads, with their stretch nylon Versace T-shirts and television soap opera hair cuts, are the swankiest, hippest, sexiest backwoods 20-somethings you’ll ever see.
The girls come across with a mix of the steamy sensuality of Margo Timmins and the wrecked sluttiness of Courtney Love. The boys are sort of Parkdale junkie personalities, trapped in a working class town, except with Melrose Place bone structure and washboard abs – which makes the fucking part a lot more interesting.
There’s a gay sub-plot between two of the boys – one guy returns from the big city to check out whether his earlier furtive relationship with one of his buds stands a chance at survival. But, don’t you know, nothing survives is this setting.
Full Blast opens Fri, Apr 7.
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