(Check out Savina Petkova’s Peak Everything movie review. The film just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
As we are nearing the point of no return and a climate catastrophe seems imminent, now more than ever humans want to be saved. But for Canadian writer-director Anne Émond, the answer to this call lies not in any religious or broadly political solutions, but in romantic love. Yes, that quasi-magical phenomenon which makes a fool out of any skeptic is the gravitational force at the centre of Peak Everything, Émond’s sixth feature film, premiering as part of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.
Fittingly, the film’s original title is Amour Apocalypse (“Love Apocalypse”), giving us the two key words defining this charming dramedy as an amorous preamble to the end of times. Adam (Patrick Hivon) is lonely and single in his 40s – very awkward and a little bit of a pushover, he runs a rescue dog kennel, but his only employee—the teenage Romy (Elizabeth Mageren)—bosses him around instead. One day he orders a pyramid-shaped solar therapy lamp: a last resort for someone riddled with climate anxiety, an isolated man with little hope to spare.
Hivon’s performance is a mix of warmth and startled paranoia, rendering Adam essentially harmless to everybody but himself. One cannot help but feel empathy for this woeful dork and his canine friends (especially the labrador Cobelet, who is already a frontrunner for this year’s Palme Dog). Yet something cracks open when he overshares on a call with customer service. Instead of simply asking for a replacement for his broken therapy lamp, Adam confesses to feeling “deep, deep sadness” over the phone. On the line, the voice of tech support agent Tina (Piper Perabo) is almost too good to be true: the film’s sound design forgoes any “phone line” effects like crackling and distortion, so that what we hear remains pure, but somewhat artificial. Adam suspects she is A.I., and the audience suspects as much, until a natural disaster brings them face to face.
Émond’s regular cinematographer Olivier Gossot films the suburbs of Montreal with a sense of whimsy, regardless of whether it’s a street at dusk or a snowy mountain landscape: his penchant for wide shots and slow zooms serve a subtle comedic purpose reminding us that Peak Everything shares producer credits with Matthew Rankin’s eccentric gem, Universal Language. Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and Sean Baker’s Red Rocket also serve as visual references for composition and light, and traces of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind echo a particular winter scene.
While the phrase “peak everything” signals Earth’s resource limitations, in Émond’s new film its newly found romantic connotation only raises the stakes. A well-calibrated cast, between Hivon’s endearing portrayal of eco anxiety (and a tiny bit of egocentrism) and Perabo’s performance of childlike wonder, there is an undeniable softness to this particular apocalyptic narrative. Perhaps only the awkward, googly-eyed lovers are brave enough to witness the end of the world as we know it.
– Savina Petkova (@SavinaPetkova)
2025 Cannes Film Festival; Anne Émond,; Peak Everything
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