Swiss writer-director Jasmin Gordon’s first feature The Courageous asks the viewer to fill in a lot of blanks, and in this case, that’s mostly a good thing from an intelligence perspective. The Courageous is a well executed and performed drama, but also a thought exercise, and a challenge that forces the viewer to look beyond the obvious and build empathy for a character that might otherwise appear indefensible to some. It’s a subtle, potent commentary on a world that forces people who’ve made mistakes and done wrong in the past to continually pay for their slips and falls in perpetuity without any clear path forward. Gordon pushes the boundaries of a viewer’s understanding, but whether or not that connects with everyone who views The Courageous is debatable.
Julie (Ophèlia Kolb) is a single and struggling mother of three living on the edge of despair and desperation at all times. She’s trying hard to earn enough money to put a down payment on a fixer-upper home, while simultaneously on the verge of being evicted from her modest apartment. What she does for a living or to make the little money she has is a mystery, but it clearly isn’t enough, and any and all options for income are on the table, even illegal ones. She does her best to keep all of her problems tucked away and out of sight of her kids: eldest daughter Claire (Jasmine Kalisz Saurer), youngest son Sami (Arthur Devaux), and sensitive middle boy Loïc (Paul Besnier), the latter of whom likely has an Asperger’s diagnosis. But the kids – Claire, in particular – are starting to notice that Julie isn’t being honest with her happy, hearty facade.
The Courageous takes a big leap of faith with the audience early on and continues to double down on making Julie into a complex, flawed character. Depending on the morality the viewer brings into Gordon’s film, they might be tempted to write Julie off after the opening scene, where she drops the kids off at a diner and it doesn’t look like she’s coming back to get them. As the film goes on, Julie openly lies to her kids about any number of things (strange people scoping out their apartment are “painters,” the device she has to wear because of her “bad ankles”), and she’s not above stealing to achieve her goals. Viewers that have a cut and dry sense of right and wrong will need to do a lot of heavy lifting to make it through The Courageous without being infuriated.
Why? Because Gordon’s film boils down to a story about a woman who will do anything for their kids, no matter how flawed, shortsighted, or foolhardy those plans play out. Julie’s deceptions are, in their own strange way, acts of love and protection. Gordon never comes out and says what mistakes have held Julie back in life, but they’re apparently bad enough that people in the present are unwilling to help her get back on track. A lot of the narrative is told from the limited perspective of Julie’s kids, who’ve been left in the dark about how dire things have gotten for their family. Gordon asks the viewer to care, not just for the children, but for the woman silently struggling; unable to help herself and always in survival mode. If Julie was an upper or middle class person doing these same things, she would be branded a sociopath, full stop. But as someone who has no other means at her disposal, they come across as learned behaviours from someone who’s lived a hard life. But again, it’s fully up to the audience to see that for themselves.
Kolb’s performance as Julie is heart-wrenching and nuanced. Julie always looks like she’s primed to explode into either tears or a tirade, but she has convinced herself that no one is listening, so there’s little use in either expression of emotions. Her happiness around her kids alternates between being genuine and painfully forced. Kolb always makes Julie look like someone whose mind is (understandably) in a hundred different places at once. Julie wants so desperately to appear like a role model to her kids, but she’s always looking over her shoulder and on high alert for anyone or anything that can destroy the tenuous house of cards she’s built over time. It’s a performance that requires Kolb to keep an elevated sense of intensity at all times, and that’s not an easy ask. This is one of the hardest types of roles to play, and Kolb does it brilliantly, getting nice assists from the younger co-stars who play Julie’s children.
But is The Courageous successful as a whole? I’m not entirely sure about success, but it’s still a good film. It’s certainly interesting and without compromise, but Gordon’s film – which clocks in at barely 80 minutes – might be too vague for its own good. There are many places where even a single line of dialogue could change the trajectory of the film’s emotional core, but Gordon shows an aversion to anything that could make the viewer either feel more or less about Julie and her family. The Courageous builds to a conclusion that’s both predictable and underwhelming at the same time, and it’s all a result of Gordon’s insistence that the viewer figure things out on their own with the limited information at their disposal. It’s brave on one hand, but on the other, I cynically wonder if audiences will be willing – or can dig deep enough inside themselves – to make such a limp ending worthwhile. The Courageous is a film that values the viewer’s intelligence, and to a certain degree their emotions, but never takes into account whether or not any of this will provoke the viewer to a deeper sense of understanding.
The Courageous opens exclusively at Cineplex Varsity Cinemas in Toronto on Friday, April 18, 2025.
