‘Peak Everything’ review: Anne Emond’s bilingual romance takes some outlandish detours

Dir/scr: Anne Emond. Canada. 2025. 100mins.

A French man suffering a mental health crisis finds hope in the most unlikely of places in Canadian director Anne Emond’s curious bilingual English and French comedy, which sets a burgeoning romance against a backdrop of climate crisis and a possible oncoming apocalypse. Peak Everything leans heavily on the considerable charms of leads Patrick Hivon and Piper Perabo, whose down-to-earth chemistry helps keep the narrative moving forwards through its frequent outlandish detours.

A softened, dream-like texture

Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, the film is produced by MetaFilms, the Canadian outfit behind last year’s inaugural Directors Fortnight prize winner Universal Language. Emond has enjoyed extensive festival play with previous features Night#1, The Loved Ones, Nelly and Young Juliette, and Peak Everything – her first film to feature English dialogue alongside French – is likely to follow a similar path. Immina Films will release in Canada and while further travel may be limited, the film’s determined optimism and warm performances could help it eventually find an audience.

Forty-five year-old Adam (Hivon) lives a small but seemingly comfortable life in a small town on the outskirts of Montreal, managing his beloved dog kennel and hanging out with his best friend Frank (Eric Kamala Boulianne) and gruff but well-meaning father Eugene (Gilles Renaud). Adam seems content enough, but his amiable laissez faire demeanour hides a deep sadness and pronounced eco anxiety – he’s overwhelmed by the notion that climate change is reaching a catastrophic tipping point – that even psychiatrist-prescribed medication and a new therapy lamp can seem to permeate.

It’s that therapy lamp that throws him into the orbit of Tina (Piper Perabo), a customer service agent at the manufacturer’s city headquarters. Their charming-if-far-fetched meet-cute sees them strike an immediate connection when he calls the hotline after breaking his lamp, the pair engaging in an animated conversation as a thunderstorm rages on Tina’s end and echoes in surround sound around Adam’s bedroom. This sets the tone for a film which will require viewers to frequently suspend their disbelief and give themselves fully over to these quirky characters and their journey. 

On that front, Peak Everything – which takes its English name from the scientific concept of reaching a maximum limit of resources – certainly lives up to its moniker, as writer/director Emond (who was inspired by her own experiences with mental health issues) throws her characters into a variety of intense situations; some comedic, others less so. Adam’s depression is very real, despite his father’s assertions to the contrary, and Hivon maintains a poignant vulnerability even when Adam finds himself in the middle of a pot-fuelled drugs bust, or gleefully slashing the tires of a neighbour’s gas-guzzling SUV with Tina cheering him on.

While the connection and chemistry between Adam and Tina is strong, and they are likeable as a pair, it’s never entirely believable. Emond initially plays with the ambiguity of the set-up – at some moments we wonder if Tina is an AI (a la Spike Jonze’s Her), at others it’s unclear whether she really exists – but soon settles into a love-against-the-odds adventure. Yet while we can understand why Adam has thrown caution to the wind in this search for some kind of happiness, Tina’s motivations are less clear. With a husband, two young children and a mundane job it is perhaps no surprise that Tina is looking for an escape but she also has a lot to lose – real-world ramifications which Emond’s script papers over with a very understanding (and possibly alcoholic) husband and lashings of joie de vivre.

That off-kilter tone is heightened by directorial choices which lean into the more fantastical elements of the film. Shooting on 35mm film brings a softened, dream-like texture, which gives this story and its locations a place-out-of-time feel; particularly so when some action unfolds in the snowy, imagined landscape of Adam’s meditation tape. Back in the real world, biblical storms and earthquakes hint at a forthcoming apocalypse that no-one apart from Adam – and, later, Tina – can see coming. Throughout, intense sound design from Sylvain Brassard amps up natural sounds to an ear-splitting degree, not so much augmenting but deliberately intruding on dramatic scenes. All at once a romantic comedy, disaster movie, family drama and eco-horror, Peak Everything throws an awful lot at the screen in service of the admirable points it wants to make.