You do not need to see violence to feel it

Reviewer Megan had just seen the world premiere of Someone's Daughter, a French-Canadian thriller at the Fantasia festival, and was trying to explain why it stayed with her though it shows almost nothing graphic. Then she put it this way: "You don't necessarily need to see everything on screen to be affected by it."

The film follows Sam, a criminal defence attorney played by Pascal Bussiere, who finds herself stranded in a remote area of Quebec's eastern townships with Paul, played by actor Francois Arnaud. Paul is a man she defended against assault charges years earlier, and the two must work together to find their way back to civilization. As the story progresses, Sam becomes less certain that he was innocent of the crime for which he was acquitted.

What Megan means is tied to the two performances. She calls the chemistry between the leads fantastic, and she calls the natural setting stunning. Much of the film rests on Sam and Paul, who have almost no one else to play off, and on Sam's quiet reckoning with having defended a man accused of harming a woman.

That reckoning, in her view, is not all spelled out. "It's not all expository," she said. "It's not all dialogue and stuff that's played out, but you can just see the process of what's happening for her."

Megan was not surprised by how the story ends, but she said she stayed engaged because the dynamic was so strong. She rated the film a 7.5 for its performances, backdrop, and writing, adding, hedged in her own words, that maybe being a woman watching a film about this subject matter had enough of an effect on her.