You Can Live Forever review – compassionate performances save an overly predictable tale of first love

The Jehovah’s Witness community of early ‘90s Quebec makes for a unique backdrop to Canadian indie You Can Live Forever, an otherwise rather predictable, though still affectingly sweet, tale of a forbidden first love that makes for a solid debut outing for filmmaking duo Mark Slutsky and Sarah Watts. It’s a well-acted and good-natured slice of life that maybe could have done with a little more punch in its explorations of a romance doomed by religious conservatism.

Our heroine here is Jaime (Anwen O’Driscoll, bringing a real young Clea DuVall vibe), a high school girl sent to live with her Jehovah’s Witness aunt and uncle in the wake of the death of her dad and subsequent mental breakdown of her mum. Alienated from her new surroundings twice over – by her lack of faith in the JW community and by her inability to speak French in the wider world of Quebec – Jaime nonetheless manages to make two fast friends; the sweetly unassuming Nathan (Hasani Freeman) and true JW believer Marike (June Laporte).

Though her hangout sessions with Nathan are a lot of fun, it’s Marike who truly changes Jaime’s world as they, rather swiftly, fall in love – a love that stands in opposition to the incredibly conservative worldview of both of their devoutly religious families. It’s in their stolen moments together that You Can Live Forever is at its best, the fizzing mix of nervousness and excitement evident in both performances, which are both very charming while sharing an undeniable chemistry with one another. From here, the story follows the exact path you think it will, but it’s saved by just how easy it is to root for this central couple.

Whilst Slutsky and Watts don’t shy away from how repressive and downright strange the JW system is, with the bizarre contrast of apocalyptic beliefs and painfully dull sermons, this isn’t the sort of gritty deep dive into the psychology of the group that we saw in the British indie Apostasy from a few years back. Though Jaime’s uncle is a bit of a spiteful shitbag (all the men make a point of sitting around while their wives and daughters do literally every bit of housework), her aunt Beth (Liane Balaban) holds love and understanding for her, whilst Marike’s dad is not the evangelist you might expect.

It can make for scenes that feel a bit slight, Slutsky and Watts gesturing towards a moral judgement without quite actually articulating it, but it does build a more convincing world, one which you understand Marike’s, and eventually Jaime’s, emotional attachment to. A gently pleasant score really helps with this and, though the film is hardly a visually ambitious one, the occasional jaunts out into the Canadian wilderness do a good job of expanding the scope whilst sticking to an obviously minuscule budget. There’s very little to surprise in You Can Live Forever as it rigidly sticks to formula, but the obvious warmth and compassion at its heart keeps this familiarity from becoming actually stale.

You Can Live Forever is released in UK cinemas and Curzon Home Cinema on 16 June.