It’s crazy the extent to which Quebec’s TV winter is so bountiful — or overflowing? – fictional series, on all channels, on all platforms, in all imaginable formats.
Posted at 7:15 p.m
Like the hepatitis C patient in STAT who also murdered his father in Indefensible, I lose the map and get convulsions here. Help, I can’t see and follow everything anymore.
Keeping up with my programs is impossible, like a prosecutor going up against a Lapointe-Macdonald attorney: he’ll never win.
Unfortunately for our already shortened nights, ICI Tou.TV’s Extra on Thursday adds another very interesting production to the pile of stuff to watch for the next few days. This is the psychological thriller Eyes Closed written by Anita Rowan (O’) and starring Magalie Lépine-Blondeau.
After devouring two hour-long episodes on Wednesday, I would have happily devoured the last four to solve the mystery at the heart of this riveting six-hour miniseries: the suicide of a 15-year-old teenager 28 years ago. Does it conceal a murder or other event that is even darker?
In the episodes of Closed Eyes, the heroine Élise Dénommé (very beautiful Magalie Lépine-Blondeau), a 38-year-old French teacher, digs into her past in search of clues that could explain the suicide of her older brother Simon (Léokim Beaumier)-Lépine ), which took place in September 1994 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
The local police then concluded that it was a premeditated act: Simon Dénommé threw himself off a bridge and his body was not recovered until the next day. The problem? Simon, 15, left no suicide note, was not depressed and had no known enemies. Then why would he want to end his life? And why has no one seen anything upstream?
In this mysterious story built in crescendo, we quickly understand that the unexpected death of Simon destroyed the Dénommé family. Mama Lorraine (excellent Anie Pascale, seen in Aller simple) never got over it and a twisted relationship ensued between her and her daughter Élise, a lonely woman unable to form a romantic relationship.
Memories of Simon’s suicide surface when Lorraine, willing to live in a private home, puts the family home up for sale. Élise then has to vacate her brother Simon’s room, a room that hasn’t been touched since 1994.
An old diary, journals, historical photos and an invitation to Simon’s high school convent shake Élise. But it’s a puzzling message left on the windscreen of her Mini Cooper that convinces Élise to delve once more into her brother’s tragic story, something she’s always refused.
“We all played a role in Simon’s death, some more than others,” the anonymous note reveals.
Apparently, Élise’s research awakens spirits and angers her cantankerous and cynical mother, who is clinging to her memories. Eyes-closed waltzes between now and 1994, where the reconstruction takes us back to the glory days of portable CD players, Pearl Jam t-shirts and depressing grunge.
In addition, the soundtrack of the first episode – railway-themed – alternates between Runaway Train from Soul Asylum and Le train de Vilain Pingouin. It’s delicious.
Three protagonists of Closed Eyes appear in 1994 and 2022, which requires the use of aging wigs and prosthetics. This dangerous cosmetic exercise works very well for the mother (Anie Pascale) and the pastoral animator, played by Benoît McGinnis. Understand: these two characters (I can’t reveal the identity of the third) don’t seem to be wearing Dollarama Halloween costumes, credit to director Jeanne Leblanc (5th row) and producer Fabienne Larouche.
And despite the misleading appearance, Closed Eyes doesn’t take up a classic case of a pedophile priest who assaults teenagers and 30 years later confesses his sins. The scenario digs deeper into a painful sadness.
Indeed, the series plunges us beyond the nebulous circumstances of Simon’s suicide into a guilt-ridden clan that has not healed its wounds. Even in Dénommé’s past, it was tense, unhealthy and full of secrets.
In the present, the Unspoken Ones have plagued and corrupted the lives of all members of this dysfunctional family. We suspect that Élise’s quest for truth (and emancipation) will provoke difficult intimate upheavals among the dénommé, who can no longer close their eyes to their traumas, hence the series’ title.
Eyes Closed will air next season on Radio-Canada’s traditional television and will only have six one-hour episodes and will not have a sequel. Thank you, good evening, we can close the books like eyes after the credits.
With this tsunami of TV shows sweeping over us, it feels good to indulge in a little fasting instead of embarking on a five or seven year teleromantic relationship, doesn’t it?