Incendies (2010)

Incendies hangs everything on one enormous coincidence, and if it doesn’t land for you, the whole structure wobbles. It landed for me like a weight on the chest. Denis Villeneuve tells two stories at once: grown twins in Montreal following a strange request in their mother’s will, and the mother herself, decades earlier, surviving a civil war in a country the film never names. Lubna Azabal is extraordinary as Nawal. She plays her across a lifetime, as a young woman in love, a survivor, a prisoner and a mother carrying a long silence, and she never asks for pity. Villeneuve films the war without spectacle, and one scene on a bus is among the most devastating things he has ever put on screen. Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin anchors the present day with quiet grit. Maxim Gaudette’s Simon stays underwritten until late. At 131 minutes it’s slow on purpose. A 9.0 because it’s honest about how violence echoes through a family for generations. $7,273 says you ask an older relative this month to tell you a story from before you were born.

What works: Lubna Azabal gives a towering performance, and Villeneuve treats the war and its survivors with restraint and respect.

What doesn’t: The final revelation depends on a coincidence so large that some viewers will find it hard to accept, and Simon is underwritten.

Who it’s for: Viewers ready for a demanding, deeply serious drama about war, family and inherited grief.