Les Pee-Wee series

(On TV, December 2020) Exactly no one was asking for a teen hockey film in three dimensions, but I suppose that the marketing coup in the small French-Canadian market was worth it – and let’s face it, audiences here lap up any kind of hockey film. Les Pee-Wee 3D: L’hiver qui a changé ma vie is familiar material – three young teenagers are brought together by hockey, learning life lessons along the way and competing in a major tournament as a test of their skills. Two boys and one girl share lead roles, and director Eric Tessier effectively moves the pieces of this small-scale sports film. The drama is shot cleanly, the hockey sequences are pretty good, and everything in between is unobtrusive. People who aren’t from Canada (and even more so French-Canada) can’t quite understand the enormous infrastructure that makes the country such an effective hockey-player factory, and it starts at the very junior level. If nothing else, Les Pee-Wee is a glimpse into that subculture, a pleasant-enough sports film for teenagers, and an easy crowd-pleaser. Surprisingly enough, the film got a sequel five years later, Junior Majeur, which followed the main characters into their early adult years, with far darker and more complicated subplots.