Meira (Hadas Yaron) takes a long, hard look at her life in Maxime Giroux’s FELIX AND MEIRA
FELIX AND MEIRA (FÉLIX ET MEIRA) (Maxime Giroux, 2014)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Thursday, January 29, 3:30 & 9:00
Festival runs through January 29
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com
The 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival comes to a close on January 29 with Maxime Giroux’s somber, reflective Félix and Meira. Named Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film stars Israeli actress Hadas Yaron as Meira, a young married woman who is feeling trapped by the constraints of the Hasidic world in which she lives in Montreal’s Mile End district. Her husband, Shulem (Luzer Twersky), is a devout man who follows the tenets of his religion; he and Meira sleep in separate beds, and he seems more intent on ritualistically washing his hands in the bedroom than touching his wife. One morning, while pushing her daughter in a stroller, she is approached by Félix (Martin Dubreuil), a conflicted man whose father just died so he is seeking advice about God and death. Meira tells him to leave them alone, but soon Félix and Meira are meeting in secret, and when Shulem finds out about it, he ships Meira off to Brooklyn. Félix goes after her, wanting to take their relationship to the next level as Meira considers her responsibilities to her husband, her daughter, and herself.
Félix (Martin Dubreuil) and Meira (Hadas Yaron) are both looking for something more in Canadian drama set in Hasidic world
Félix and Meira is a subtle, slow-moving tale that avoids genre clichés, keeping the details tantalizingly vague and mysterious. There’s not a lot of humor in the film; instead, there’s an ominous, moody cloud hanging over everything, the story bordering just on the edge of passion without ever exploding. Yaron (Fill the Void) plays Meira with a dark foreboding, while Dubreuil (Bunker, Ressac) and Twersky (Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish, Where Is Joel Baum?) work well as adversaries who want Meira in their life, albeit for different reasons. Cowriter and director Giroux (Demain, Jo pour Jonathan) doesn’t force any issues, maintaining a low-key approach that is intensified by an overall palette of blacks, whites, and grays. Félix and Meira is the closing-night selection of the New York Jewish Film Festival, screening on January 29 at 3:30 and 9:00 at the Walter Reade Theater, with each show followed by a Q&A with Giroux and members of the cast.