While Stéphane Lafleur’s third feature, 2014’s Tu Dors Nicole, chronicled the summer malaise between of aimless Quebecois post-grads, his follow-up, Viking, explores a different, slightly otherworldly strain of existentialism. High school gym teacher David (Steven Laplante) gets the opportunity to revive his dreams of becoming an astronaut by joining a behavioral research team called the Viking Society that will mirror the first manned mission to Mars. This B-team plans to replicate the mission in a controlled environment that resembles the probe—i.e., a Quonset hut in the desert—where they will game out potential interpersonal conflicts between the five-member crew in order […]

Upon its Cannes premiere and ever since, Stéphane Lafleur’s Tu dors Nicole (You’re Sleeping Nicole) was instantly and endlessly pegged as the Québécois equivalent of Frances Ha. Understandable, given that it’s a black-and-white portrait of two close girlfriends’ extended falling-out as one conspicuously matures while the other flounders aimlessly. Still, Nicole‘s tempered acridness and emphasis on the annoyances of minimum-wage jobs taken upon reluctant entrance to the working world makes Ghost World a closer point of reference. Despite taking place at a post-undergrad time in its characters’ lives, the vibe is similarly very high school (minus the unpleasantness and pain that can come with that terrain): […]