Emma Peeters (Nicole Palo, 2018): Canada, Belgium

Reviewed by William Geare. Viewed at the 2019 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Nicole Palo’s Emma Peeters is a comedy about a struggling actress who, as she approaches her 35th birthday, realizes her dream is unlikely to come true. Instead of continuing to scrounge for work in the film industry, she decides the most sensical option is to give up on her dream and kill herself. Hijinx ensue as she plots her own death with a quirky funeral home employee.

While not devoid of all appeal, Emma Peeters is a deeply unsatisfying film that fails to live up to the potential of its premise. It does not fully commit to morbidness enough to call it a black comedy, yet its subject matter allows for little else to be done. But even so, the story shifts into the all too predictable structure of a romantic comedy, which hardly seems fitting and comes across incredibly forced. Though there are cute moments sprinkled throughout the runtime, the film is so narratively unfocused that any enjoyment that can be gleaned from them is quickly cancelled out by several ludicrously placed comedic set pieces that do very little to further the plot.

There is also something so painfully bland about the visual style. Everything from the high key lighting to the standard coverage does very little to differentiate the film from any other recent comedy. In addition to that, the choices are tonally dissonant with the darkness of suicide as a topic. And instead of feeling like a clever and subversion on the topic, the style reads as the result of a lack of creativity – a default setting for a lazy filmmaker.

But the most disappointing thing about Emma Peeters is that when the film isn’t squandering its comedic potential or shoe-horning in an unearned romance, it’s actually rather decent. Monia Chokri is charming in the titular role, and Jean-Henri Compère and Anne Sylvain provide some of the best jokes as Emma’s parents. It is truly a shame that this much talent in front of the camera has been wasted on a lackluster script.