A movie called “Peak Everything” might seem to imply a certain measure of maximalism, but Anne Émond’s disarmingly low-key romance — its title alluding to the strain that the 21st century has placed on all of the world’s resources at once — prefers to vibe off the emotional paralysis of living at the end of the world. To borrow a word that the film doesn’t bother to define (we know what it means even if we don’t know what it means), this twee French-Canadian love story is steeped in the heartache of “solastalgia,” or the existential distress caused by a change to one’s home environment. The sea levels rise and the moon glows red, but “Peak Everything” remains at the pitch of a self-help tape as it strains to find a ray of light in the storm clouds of what’s coming.
Be that as it may, the apocalypse is as real to Émond’s protagonist as it was to the characters in spiritual forebears like “Miracle Mile” or “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.” Kind-hearted kennel-owner Adam (Patrick Hivon) is simply too overwhelmed by anxiety to panic or to partner up. His mother is dead, his boorish father doesn’t believe that men should have feelings, and his psychiatrist just starts doodling whenever he goes on one of his usual rants about ecological collapse. By the time we first meet him, Adam’s only recourse is to order a Polar Lux light therapy lamp on Amazon.
The sound of the delivery person scanning the package is the first thing we hear at the start of the film, and it’s distressing how perfectly that beep meep BEEP! — so recognizable from the ambient noise of our own lives — articulates that Adam’s world is on the brink of ruin. The lamp doesn’t work, but when Adam phones the customer service line for help, the upbeat voice on the other end of the line suddenly fills him with hope and possibility in the face of catastrophe. The feeling is mutual; Tina (Piper Perabo) is as stirred by Adam’s naked unease as he is by her immaculate cheer. They don’t know anything about each other, but — at a time when the fate of humanity is as clear and inflexible as scientific data — the unknown might be the last place that either of these people can still look for salvation.
Set to be released as “Amour Apocalypse” in French, “Peak Everything” is a cute and winsome little movie that often suffers from the same paralysis as its cute and winsome hero, whose permanent hangdog expression makes his high cheekbones feel like some kind of cosmic joke. Kooky in a way that it always embraces but never admits to, Émond’s wryly neurotic script isn’t just rooted in Adam’s anxiety, it’s flattened by it as well.
The sociopathic Gen-Z girl who Adam employs at the kennel — she hates work, but loves torturing her boss with unsolicited handjobs — is slightly amusing in a very different way than his 40-something friend who’s obsessed with putting hot dogs into his macaroni and cheese, but Adam feels equally alienated from them both (how can they be so asinine at a time like this!?), so the film treats them with the same deadpan confusion. It’s normal that nothing makes sense to him, and “Peak Everything” is so determined to maintain that steady tone of disconnection that it seldom dares to swing for bigger laughs or strike at a deeper kind of pathos. The scale of the story ramps up once Adam resolves to drive across Ontario and find Tina in the flesh, and the film readily expands to make room for a handful of overlapping genres, but Émond is reluctant to risk as much as her main character; everything gets mixed up, but little of it is meaningfully entwined.
That includes Adam and Tina, two “young old people” (as Émond describes them in the film’s press notes) who literally create a kind of call-and-response between the pervasive dread of being alive right now and the pleasures of being pure at heart. Which isn’t to say that Adam is just depression personified, and Tina the cure for what ails him; she has a massive weight around her shoulders as well, but the leap of faith that Adam takes in finding her gives Tina the push she needs to make a similar jump of her own.
That’s the only level on which these strangers really connect with each other (that and their mutual love of snow), and the fact that they don’t share the same first language further underlines the reality that they come from different worlds, but it’s enough for them to ride out the end of the world together.
Still, in a movie so concerned with the lack of communication between people, that the movie isn’t particularly capable of communicating anything of its own is a problem. It’s difficult to render depression in a way that allows for fun or catharsis, and “Peak Everything” struggles with that dilemma as it crescendos towards the apocalypse. It’s clear the film is rooted in a real understanding of the conditions at hand (just as it’s clear that Émond has wrested this story from a place of personal heartache), and the rawness of it all tends to bleed through some of the cutesier attempts at comedy.
“I wish I could understand the world better,” Adam sighs at one point, his voice already heavy with the weight of it ending. But this is nothing if not a light comedy, and “Peak Everything” is content to remind Adam that at least it hasn’t ended yet.
Grade: C+
“Peak Everything” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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