In “You Can Live Forever,” Jaime and Marike do many of the things teenagers in love do, such as looking pitifully into each other’s eyes and making love in the backseat of a car. They also knock on doors to proselytize for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Yes, the latter becomes a problem for first-time lesbians.
To complicate matters, Jaime (Anwen O’Driscoll) is a recent transplant to their small Quebec town and goes along for the religious ride to be alone with Marike (June Laporte), a believer who grew up in ‘the truth’.
The intersection of homosexuality and faith has been explored in films before — Sebastián Lelio’s “Disobedience,” set among the Orthodox Jewish community, is a high-profile recent example — and the story of Mark Slutsky and Sarah Watts benefits from being rooted in Watts’ own gay in the 1990s. As if to underline that the film is set in that decade, Jaime never seems to take off her flannel and hat and Marike kisses to the sound of the Breeders; Gayle Ye’s cinematography is also a nice washed-up hue, as if bleached from bold colors – very true to the grunge sensibility.
Otherwise, “You Can Live Forever” sticks to a fairly generic coming-of-age trajectory. There’s a sense of a missed opportunity as we see the action through the eyes of Jaime, who is more accepting of her sexuality from the start, leaving Marike with a tantalizing void. She initiates every move with Jaime, only to transition into bible study or a guys double date. How does Marike rationalize this new love and her faith? Not even the Breeders have a song for that.
You can live forever
Not judged. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters and for rent or sale on most major platforms.
