Leaving Everything 1.2 - Composition

Title : Leaving Everything

Director : Marielle Heller

Writer : Ann Morrow

Based on the novel by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Robin Tunney, Tobey Maguire, Adam Brody, Oliver Platt, Colm Feore, Odette Annable, Lucy Hale, Phoebe Torkin, Ryan McPartlin, Brenna Sherman and James Le Gros

Plot: 1942. A couple of years after the previous Quebec prime was ousted, arts were thriving in Quebec, after decades of repression. A man, Paul-Emile Borduas (Colm Feore) presents his first ever collection of paintings at a Montreal art gallery. The exposition is overlooked by the general public, to Borduas’ deception, but is a hit for a small portion of the population. Borduas wakes up one morning and is sad to see that there’s no mention of him in the Journal, or the Gazette. He takes his cup of coffee, and heads to the school where he’s teaching.

His small group of students is there and applaud him, for what they think was a successful exposition, but he’s unflustered, telling them to settle down so they can get down to business. His students, a bit older than your average student, were awakened when they found out about art and have quit jobs they didn’t like to study their passion with Borduas. Amongst them, Jean-Paul Riopelle (Adam Brody), Oliver Platt (Claude Gauvreau), Marcelle Ferron (Odette Annable) and Marcel Barbeau (Tobey Maguire) are frequently regarded as his best students. Borduas explains the basics of painting, as Suzanne (Rebecca Hall) silently listens next to the door, having just enrolled in the school.

When she was younger, Suzanne (Brenna Sherman) was not an ordinary kid. She didn’t act like an ordinary little girl. Whereas her friends stayed inside and played, she was running outside in the mud and the rain, getting herself all dirty, to the obvious disappointment of her mother. Claudia (Phoebe Tonkin), Achilles (Ryan McPartlin) and the rest of the family were getting ready to go to church, all dressed up and ready to go, but Suzanne just had to chase this butterfly. She tripped and fell in the mud. Achilles picks her up and gives her a good slap across the face, as Claudia urges him to stop. When they get to the church, Suzanne, not wanting to fall in line like the other kids, acts improperly, forcing her family to do the walk of shame, leaving the church before service is over. Back at home, Achilles beats her again, as Claudia cries in the background. She has a little baby bump showing.

When Borduas gives a little exercise to his students, reaches over to Suzanne and he asks her if he would want to join the class. Suzanne says she’s inexperienced in the painting domain as she’s more of a poet, or a writer. He says to today’s class is more about painting, but he often meets after class with some of his students, to write and to give themselves ideas. He says she’s welcome to stay, but she should definitely come tonight. Suzanne politely declines the offer, as she’s working in a diner tonight and speaking of this, she has to leave now. As she walks in the old city, Marcel who was the girl Borduas was talking to. When she enters the restaurant, she tells her boss that she won’t be able to work tonight, she’s sick.

Anna (Robin Tunney) puts her book down when she’s interrupted by her uncle’s doctor (James Le Gros). He asks her to follow him to his office, where they’ll be able to talk more privately. The doctor says her uncle hasn’t received a visitor in a long time. She asks if it’s possible to know who’s the last person to visit him and he says his father came in one time. The doctor claims he doesn’t have anyone they can contact in case of an emergency and until his father showed up, they were certain that he had no family. In fact, he’s been hospitalized since he was eighteen years old. The doctor asks her what brings her in Francis’s life and she says that his mother died and she’s tracking down her family. As the doctor guessed, they aren’t really close. The doctor receives a call and he has to leave. Anna leaves while he’s gone, but she’ll come back, she wants to know why her uncle is like that.

Borduas and his group of students sit in a cafe, talking about society and how they disagree with everything that’s happening in the world. Suzanne arrives and Borduas gives her a warm welcome. He presents her to Françoise Sullivan (Lucy Hale), Claude’s girlfriend. She’s an esteemed dancer and she officially invites her to her show tomorrow. Suzanne gladly accepts and she orders a coffee. They laugh together and have fun. Borduas takes out crayons and pencils from his bag and they all start to draw, or to write on napkins. Suzanne then realises that she hasn’t been this happy in a long time. She writes a poem about that and reads it aloud to the others and are moved by it. They say she’s officially part of the gang now. Borduas coldly says that he has to leave. A man is seen watching him from afar. It brings the mood down and they all leave one by one. Suzanne and Marcel remain and they leave together. He shows her around town, walking through old Montreal. She looks at him and laughs when he tells jokes, he looks at her too with a certain envy. It starts to snow and they hold hands. Suzanne is so happy.

A young Suzanne continues to get on her parents’ nerves. Constantly defying authority, she gets up in the middle of the night, right when all of her younger siblings are sleeping and she gets closer to the dreaded, forbidden piano. She lifts the keyboard protector and starts to play whatever she feels like, with the sole purpose of waking up her siblings as she wants to play with them in the middle of the night. Her mother, Claudia, comes out of the darkness of the living room and grabs her daughter. She brings her over to her fortune bed and covers her the best she can. Achilles comes downstairs and looks all over for the culprit. The babies are crying and the toddlers are up. Achilles stinks of alcohol and doesn’t see Suzanne, who’s hidden by Claudia. The whole family is gathered in the living room and Achilles grabs his belt and whips it.

1944

Borduas is crying. His group of students is gathered around him, reading the newspaper. It’s been two years she’s been in Montreal and she’s never seen her stone cold teacher shaken up to the core like this. She doesn’t know what is going on and even Marcel won’t tell her what’s happening. Borduas gives a sign to Riopelle and he grabs a match out of his pocket and he throws it on the ground. The fire quickly spreads and consumes all of their paintings and writings. Borduas throws his newspaper in the fire and we can see, out of the burning paper, that the new Prime Minister, Maurice Duplessis, back in office after a five-year hiatus, bans all non-religious art.