Director Léa Pool (Set Me Free, Lost and Delirious) shows a keen eye for detail in this breezy French-Canadian period piece full of serious dramatic elements as well as youth and spirited freedom.

It’s 1966 in a picturesque Montreal suburb and three children — Élise, Coco and Benoit — are on summer holiday. On the surface, family life is cookie-cutter perfect. Mom ably juggles domestic duties while maintaning her career as a journalist. Dad is a specialist in tropical diseases but always has time for Benoit’s constant barrage of questions. And while Coco is lost in his own world in the garage, Élise has ahead of her a hot summer of running barefoot through cornfields and partaking in kissing competitions. Scratch just below the surface and the relationship between the two adults is as cold as a popsicle. When Élise challenges her mother to eavesdrop on a secret telephone call involving her father, Élise’s rose-tinted view of the world is forever changed. Drawing on a rich palette of supporting characters that includes the ginger-haired mechanic’s son who insists gas, not blood, runs through his veins; twins who dress alike and speak in unison; and Mr. Fly, the strange deaf neighbor who lives in a trailer, Pool offers a skewed view of the world seen through the eyes of a young woman who, in coming of age, realizes the value of protecting the ones you love. (French with English subtitles) -- Carol Coombes