Time: 89 Minutes
Age Rating: G
Cast:
Rojina Esmaeili as Negin
Saba Vahedyousefi as Nazgol
Sobhan Javadi as Omid
Pirouz Nemati as Massoud
Mani Soleymanlou as Iraj Bilodeau
Danielle Fichaud as Monsieur Castonguay
Director: Matthew Rankin

When I went to check out Universal Language at the Film Society, I really didn’t know what to expect, outside of it being a Canadian movie from a couple of years back. While I enjoyed it on the whole, I still felt rather disappointed by the end.

My disappointment with Universal Language comes from the fact that I actually quite liked it at the beginning. The first act started off really well for me, with the quirky, off beat and absurdist approach and the deadpan humour, it reminded me of a Wes Anderson film. When it came to the central story though, I wasn’t invested in it. I do think that as a non Canadian, some parts flew over my head. I’m probably missing some context and didn’t pick up on much of the subtext. Regardless, once it exited the first act, I found that my interest waned. It largely moves away from the quirky tone which had me on board in the first place, and became something quite different. The pacing really slows down a lot and the story becomes much more melancholic. I will admit that in the cinema, I did drift off more than a few times, not helped by the effective dreamlike vibe, especially in the middle. There’s a number of story threads at play, though I wasn’t interested in most of them, even if I liked how some of them intersected. I appreciated the ambition of the third act, but not exactly sure that it stuck the landing for me.

Matthew Rankin’s direction is good. I enjoyed the presentation with the framing, muted colour palette, long takes, blocking, and the striking images. There’s some effective editing with the jump cuts and the visual gags largely hit for me. It even goes into the surreal at times, and generally has a relaxed and drawn out dreamlike vibe.

Universal Language is an quirky, absurdist, and offbeat dramedy with an appealing aesthetic and style, but isn’t particularly engaging.