peratic music presides over untranslated Norwegian text (which apologizes for cliches depicted in the movie and the amount of fabrications therein) and rushing waves of seawater before seguing to a bloody fish (voiced by Pierre Lebeau) about to be butchered, who wishes to relate a story – one that isn’t necessarily that of the aquatic vertebrate and how he arrived in his precarious situation. “I have little time left.” Curiously, this transitions to the story proper, which depicts in uncommon details, the lead character getting an abortion in a clinic (frank dialogue on this subject is to come as well) – after which rather upbeat, cheery music follows.

“A young woman starts on a long voyage toward reality,” says the unlikely narrator (who is soon beheaded) as 25-year-old Bibiane Champagne (Marie-Josee Croze, giving a fine performance) heads to her clothing boutique chain, which has been robbed yet again. It’s not the only issue either, as her Jakarta supplier hasn’t been paid, thanks to Bibi mishandling $200,000 from her brother Philippe’s (Bobby Beshro) investment company, putting her entire business at risk. And that’s just the beginning of her woes, since she drunkenly hits a pedestrian – a fishmonger – on her drive home, fleeing the scene before determining if her victim survived his injuries. Mentally, she isn’t too concerned at first, as she engages in an interview and photo shoot the next morning.

A lot of elements are interconnected in this unconventional tale, but it’s mostly chaotic, even with its structuring, which scrambles the chronology, and cinematography, some of which involves rapid cuts and inserts. In the early moments, it may be trying to say something about slaughtering seafood (and the complicity of consuming it) and in turn getting assaulted, but it’s never very clear – perhaps as the title suggests. Bibi’s life steadily devolves into a tumultuous, disordered state; guilt consumes her, though it’s not from the abortion, as her friend Claire Gunderson (Stephanie Morgenstern) assumes. Partying and drugs help the entrepreneur to forget the anxiety of possibly killing someone, as well as sex with a stranger, but nightmares plague her sleep.

Repeated shots of the cleaning and chopping and preparation of fish aim to tie a few visuals together and create a certain uniqueness, but Bibi’s dramas are somewhat standard affairs – a protagonist in over her head, struggling to cope with a fateful accident and the escalating aftermath. More amusing is the “butterfly effect” of related situations, in which the fishmonger’s untimely demise reverberates throughout his immediate community and back into Bibi’s own life – in minute, mundane ways, shown via flashbacks that detail previously seen interactions. But as more and more actions correspond and overlap, they begin to feel like overwrought cinematic coincidence (aided by wry humor) more than natural, creative providence; Bibi’s concerted, forced involvement in the life of the man she ran down eventually grows comical, cathartic, and redemptive – as well as sexual, since virtually everything is about sex, as commented on during Champagne’s interview. Like a romantic comedy with a predicament that is too catastrophic to end well, “Maelstrom’s” eventual confessions and solutions must be over-the-top and unrealistic to resolve in a satisfying way – generating a ludicrous foundation for a relationship. But at least the notions that life is messy and consequences can be exceptionally complex and whimsically unknowable are effectively quaint here.

– Mike Massie