You Can Live Forever
Two teenagers living in a Jehovah’s Witness community in Quebec find themselves drawn to each other.
The great thing about You Can Live Forever is what the actresses Anwen O'Driscoll and June Laporte bring to the two leading roles. The film in which they star is the work of Sarah Watts and Mark Slutsky who share the credits for writing and directing. In creating their film, they both drew on their own real-life experiences and this is particularly significant in the case of Sarah Watts because as a child she grew up in a Jehovah's Witness community. In her own case she left at the age of thirteen, but You Can Live Forever portrays that community as she remembers it while also imagining what it would have been like had she not broken away then. Her film depicts the issues that arise when Marike (Laporte’s role), the daughter of a minister and a devout Jehovah's Witness, falls in love and, in so doing, recognises her lesbian nature for the first time.
This happens when she meets Jaime, the 17-year-old played by O’Driscoll, who is temporarily living near Marike in the Saguenay River Valley north-east of Montreal. Jaime is living with her aunt (Liane Balaban) who has invited her to stay while Jaime’s mother is given time to get over the sudden death of Jaime's father. Since the aunt and her husband (Antoine Yared) are Jehovah's Witnesses, Jaime, who is not, is encouraged to attend their meetings while she is there. That is how she and Marike meet and quickly establish a bond which soon grows into first love. It is, of course, ironic that Jehovah's Witnesses proclaim that they are, as they put it, living in the truth because both girls recognise that if they express their truth by showing their love openly, they would immediately face hostility and be forced apart.
In tackling this subject matter, which plays out here as a story set in the tail end of the 20th century, Watts and Slutsky are bringing together two elements that are equally significant. On the one hand, this is a film which seeks to show authentically what it is like to live as a Jehovah's Witness with the restrictions that go with that and it emphasises how this can even extend to children who are believers being required to treat as dead a parent who has ceased to belong and has chosen to leave. In this respect - and also in its wish to recognise the honest faith of the church members rather than to see them as villainous -You Can Live Forever echoes that fine British film 2017’s Apostasy which was made by Daniel Kokotajlo, also a former Jehovah's Witness. But in this case the focus on a lesbian love story told in tandem will mean that for some viewers that aspect is the film’s main draw.
The attempt to combine these two aspects may not leave everyone satisfied. It has certainly resulted in a film in which the portrayal of the religious community takes up much of the time to the extent that the blossoming of the relationship between Jaime and Marike from friendship into love is slow in developing. But if, despite the convincing characterisation of the subsidiary figures (among them a black student named Nate (Hasani Freeman) who is drawn to Jaime and becomes her friend and confidant), it might have seemed that the central relationship needed to be hurried on more to hold the audience fully, that is not how it works out in practice. This is due to O'Driscoll and Laporte being so totally expressive and engaging, so alert to the gradual growth of feeling, that we live every moment with them. I can but guess yet it would not surprise me if for some lesbian viewers these two characters were amongst the most engaging in any film portraying a lesbian love story, the most likely to invite identification.
Unexpectedly, I found that it was the extra drama in the film’s last third that was open to question. Given the stress on the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses earlier on, I did expect the slow build-up to lead to some direct confrontation that would provide a scene of verbal fireworks but that does not happen. What does occur, rather too abruptly, is a decision by Marike which may not be altogether improbable but which nevertheless needed to be discussed in rather more detail to be fully persuasive. Ultimately, one feels that the conclusion offered in You Can Live Forever does indeed deliver the message that Watts and Slutsky wanted to convey, but some at least will surely feel that the form that it takes is less than ideal. However, it's more important to stress that this well made and notably well-acted film could become one that, despite it being a debut feature, is likely to find its place as a favourite among films looking at life from a lesbian perspective.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Anwen O’Driscoll, June Laporte, Liane Balaban, Antoine Yared, Hasani Freeman, Deragh Campbell, Tim Campbell, Lenni-Kim Lalande, Catherine-Amélie Côté, Marc-Antoine Auger, Judo Ferras.
Dir Sarah Watts and Mark Slutsky, Pro Robert Vroom, Screenplay Sarah Watts and Mark Slutsky, Ph Gayle Le, Pro Des André Chamberland, Ed Amelie Labreche, Music CFCF, Costumes Kayleigh Choiniere.
Prospector Films-Peccadillo Pictures.
96 mins. Canada. 2022. US Rel: 5 May 2023. UK Rel: 16 June 2023. Cert. 15.
