TIFF50 Movie Review: Blood Lines (Written by Ben Scanga)

 

If there’s one thing you can’t say about Gail Maurice, it’s that she’s lacking passion. Blood Lines is a unique narrative (from a formal-presentation and narrative perspective) that shoots for the moon and stars; Maurice attempts to capture post-ironic Gen Z attitudes within a narrative that juggles generational-analysis sentiments and coming-of-age ideologies; it’s a handful and a half, to put it all lightly. All of these individual elements leave the blend feeling more akin to a homogenous blend of substances—- one that reveals the dressing of all of its intricate parts, as opposed to allowing its instruments to operate as one cohesive piece. This situation leaves the narrative operating in a way that you would almost entirely expect from a contemporary Canadian film production. This includes, but is not limited to, questionably executed love scenes, bizarre editing choices/dead-end scenes that disrupt any sense of flow the writing may happen to find itself in, as well as glossy and intensely stylized characteristics within the camerawork. There’s a certain beauty within all of the elements that Maurice is working with; the hybrid form of genre mutilation that the narrative ends up feeling aligned with, combined with the aggressive and non-conforming progression of the beats that follow create a formula that— by the end of the first act— provide the audience with the impression that this is a narrative that will refuse to back down from subject matter that may be considered taboo or uncomfortable. When the film engages itself within these moments, it accesses a wavelength of beauty and syncopation that is rarely seen on the silver screen, one that opens up avenues towards empathy and leaves your audience with an astoundingly impactful narrative. However, one of the main issues with this approach is that a great deal of its success depends on the presence of fruitful characters that grow and develop throughout the course of the narrative. Blood Lines, unfortunately, relies more on its intense and (to be quite frank) refreshing/unique logline than anything else, leaving it to remain stagnant in an area of intrigue that doesn’t surpass the common intrigue of the statement: “Well, isn’t that something, huh?”

That’s not to say Maurice’s return to September’s brutally Canadian annual celebration of film is entirely without merit. From an isolated perspective, the glossy, saturated appearance of a lot of the images on display provides a layer of pathetic fallacy towards some of the more emotionally charged moments within the second half of the feature. These moments are few and far between, but just like the peaks and valleys that are represented throughout the plot summary, they punch hard when they want to. It sounds slightly cruel to say without proper context, but half of the time, it felt like these scenes were accidentally impactful due to all the abrasive filters and enhancements that were added on top of the already stimulative visual environment— for lack of a better phrase: it’s all doused in Osgood Perkins-core. For most of the runtime, these elements allow the film to behave as a relatively engaging exercise that comments upon living and experiencing specific areas of Canada within “The Big 25”. However, this template does no favors for the film’s sense of pacing, and it quickly falls into common traps regarding relationship execution between characters, as well as narrative beats that end up feeling confused and ill-timed rather than totally impactful. It’s a tricky balancing act to keep up, especially within the context of Maurice’s ambitious and intricate narrative structures (that often appear to echo out in a non-chronological order). 

Thank you to Elevation Pictures and TARO PR for providing us with access to this film. Blood Lines opens in Canadian theatres in 2026.