Horloge Biologique [Dodging The Clock] (2005)
(On DVD, June 2006) Films about relationships are really not what I look for when I sit down to watch a DVD, but Horloge Biologique was such as success at the Quebec box-office that it was impossible to put off watching it much longer. It starts broadly enough, sketching portraits of three guys in the middle thirties are they each come to terms with much-delayed adulthood, settling down and having children. Ricardo Trogi’s direction is sharp and crisp, and the comedy seems relatively innocuous at first, headed toward the usual redemptive character arc. But that changes as the male characters are further defined as repulsive bastards, ones that can’t be bothered to make the right decisions even if it’s obvious. The female characters don’t fare much better: though presumably more level-headed than their boyfriends, they’re underwritten to such a degree that their roles as plot objects for the benefit of the protagonists becomes only too obvious. By the time the film wound down, I was actively hoping for a bus to mow down all characters. While I have to acknowledge the film’s ruthlessness (not everyone gets a happy ending, and even fewer of them deserve one) and competence in achieving exactly what it sets out to do, it’s too easy to loathe everyone in it.