Camille, played by Pascale Bussières (well-known in Quebec for her role as the title character in the wildly popular mini-series "Blanche") is a repressed, conservative teacher at a Toronto Christian college. Camille is engaged to Martin (Henry Czerny), a fellow teacher at the college. Czerny is miscast in my opinion--it is sadly difficult to separate his character from the abusive and menacing Brother Lavin of "The Boys of St. Vincent". Czerny's brooding, hooded stare distances him from the viewer and makes him far less sympathetic than his character demands in this film.

Camille's engagement seems not to touch her very deeply, despite a passionate love scene she shares with Martin, and in a moment of vulnerability she is "cruised" and captured by Petra, a circus performer wild-child played by newcomer Rachael Crawford.

Petra visibly falls head-over-heels in love with Camille and the love affair which blossoms is beautiful and exciting in its intensity. The viewer's emotions are snagged and held by the way the initial infatuation develops into profound love between the two women.

Despite the foregoing, I have a couple of reservations about the film. The musical score is excellent--dark and sinister for the circus rehearsal and audition scenes and ethereal for the dream sequences--however it would have been nice to hear more of Shirley Eikhart's voice other than in harmony. The sets are good, but the "iron" scene is just plain weird and does not fit the Cirque du Soleil-like atmosphere. Is it a prerequisite of Canadian films that they display their artsy independence with strange camera angles, sentinel-like trees and transmission towers, and nausea inducing spinning?

And one last minor whinge about the DVD: Patricia Rozema is a talented and courageous director, but her "director's commentary" is for the most part mind-numbingly boring and uninformative. We kept commenting that we wanted to learn more about the locations, the cast and the crew, only to be treated to a metaphysical soliloquoy delivered in a self-conscious monotone.

In all, 4 stars for an excellent story, well delivered, with a few relatively minor cavils.