Living somewhere in present-day Quebec, Boris Malinowski has achieved all his goals. A freethinker, open-minded and proud, he also displays a certain arrogance when it comes to his successes. For some time now, his wife Béatrice, a Canadian government minister, has been bedridden, suffering from a mysterious depression. To escape from his wife’s agony, Boris begins a relationship with a colleague, Helga, and gets close to Klara, a young woman who works as a maid in Boris’s home. The sudden appearance of a stranger in his life forces Boris to come face-to-face with the world, with everything he takes for granted, with all his certainties.
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Boris Without Beatrice revolves around Boris Malinovsky, a well-off individual whose wife is suffering from an unknown illness. All we know Beatrice's illness is that it's keeping her in her bed, isolated, without her really having any concept of the world around her. For much of the film we're treated to seeing Boris' many faults, from the way he sees others of lesser means beneath him, to the affairs he has with a pair of women, and the way he's become disconnected from his daughter. This is all turned around when a mysterious letter arrives and he meets a man who tells him to change. Is it God? It's not made clear, but it certainly leaves an impact on Boris and how he lives.By the end of the movie I was questioning whether what I saw was as straightforward as it seemed. Was any of it real, or was it in Boris' head? I'm not sure I know the answer to that question, but James Hyndman, as Boris, and Denis Cote directing did enough to make me watch and be intrigued the whole way through.
