Porn again

>> Ma fille mon ange peeks into the adult entertainment industry and offers more of the same

by MALCOLM FRASER

First-time director Alexis Durand-Brault mixes family dysfunction with seedy-underworld intrigue in the new Quebec drama Ma fille mon ange. Germain Dagenais (Michel Côté, aka the dad from C.R.A.Z.Y.) is a top political consultant in Quebec City. His 19-year-old daughter Nathalie (Karine Vanasse) is a law student in big, bad Montreal. One day when she’s home visiting, a detective drops by with some pointed questions for her about a Montreal dude who’s turned up dead in his apartment.

In a flashback, one night as Côté is perusing some Internet porn, he comes across an ad promoting an upcoming live sex session starring his daughter. He flips out and heads to the mountain city to track her down before she can engage in the dirty deed.

The story continues to flip back and forth between Vanasse’s interrogation and Côté’s frantic search for her, building up suspense about just who did what to whom. If this all sounds like an episode of CSI or Law and Order, I’m sorry to report that’s exactly what it feels like. Durand-Brault’s pedigree in TV commercials is painfully obvious: the film is slickly shot and tightly cut, but sorely lacking in artistry.

Côté embodies his character’s turmoil with great empathy. Vanasse’s performance is decent, but through no fault of her own, we never get a sense of her motivations. We keep waiting for a revelation that will shatter the perfect-family image and explain her decision to sink into godless depravity. But no, it turns out the family actually is perfect. So what’s her reason for going into porn? We never find out.

Like many a peek into the adult industry, the film affects a moralistic stance against porn, while offering up plenty of titillating tidbits. With the pornomongers (Pierre-Luc Brillant and Nicolas Canuel) portrayed as unambiguous sleazeballs, Vanasse’s career choice makes even less sense. (Brillant also rocks the cheesy spiky-hair-and-soul-patch look that seems to signify “slick Montreal dude” to a certain demographic screaming for a fashion intervention). The film that portrays porn workers as fully realized human beings has yet to be made. Meanwhile, this film ends up a cheap whodunit, falling short of either artistic glory or quétaine-classic status.

Ma fille mon ange opens this Friday, Feb. 16