Monotonous Polygamy - Follies at TIFF 2025

Directed by: Eric K. Boulianne

Cast: Eric K. Boulianne, Catherine Chabot, Erin Margurite Carter

Monogamy isn’t for everyone. Sometimes it opens the door for abuse, or it’s just plain old boring. We’re seeing a sharp rise in other forms of relationships. You got your ethical polyamory, unethical situationships, or one-sided exclusive casual long-term friends with benefits arrangements. I definitely don’t recommend the last one. With all these exciting options, what does it mean to love and be loved, especially as you age? Québecois writer, director, and actor Eric K. Boulianne’s new sex dramedy Follies tries to answer this question to middling, mostly boring results.

At a plodding 102 minutes long, the film is roughly 69% sex, 20% drama, and 11% comedy. Watching hardcore gangbang scenes in one of Toronto’s fanciest theatres with film critics old enough to be my grandparents was a new experience. Some walked out. I heard a guy laugh when a lady instructed a guy to finger the male lead’s butthole. Boulianne is crucially showing sex, not porn. We see the fat rolls, warts, and wrinkles, especially on Boulianne himself.

François (Boulianne) and Julie (Catherine Chabot) are a middle-aged married couple with two young daughters in the Montreal suburbs. They are bored with their lives and each other until François proposes they open their relationship. You could probably predict every plot beat just from the premise. The characters are not deep. François works an unremarkable job, has low self-esteem and is, therefore, going through a textbook midlife crisis. Julie is also in a rut and wants to experiment. Where it severely lacks in surprises, it makes up for it in sincerity, mainly from the two leads. Chabot delivers a red-blooded, passionate performance, particularly during the climactic argument scene. Boulianne really likes showing his ass. My favourite thing about the movie was its grainy film look. The nostalgic photography aesthetic added warmth to the story. The snowy Montreal setting resembled a liminal space, frozen in time, reflecting François’ initial sexual stagnation.

The film quickly grows stagnant. My eyes started rolling at yet another prolonged BDSM, cunnilingus, BBG threesome, GGG threesome, or BGGG foursome scene. This movie could have easily been under 90 minutes. And this is not a moralistic perspective. The eternally horny Eyes Wide Shut is the greatest movie ever made; Follies even gives it a direct, if cheap, homage. The funniest scene is where François goes into a sex club fully clothed and stumbles around a bunch of naked middle-aged guys masturbating to people having kinky sex in glass boxes. Imagine if OnlyFans were a real place. And then François leaves feeling as empty as he did when he went in. Hey, that’s pretty much how this film made me feel!