Synopsis

One night, Bibianne hits a man with her car while driving drunk; she flees the scene, and the man crawls home to die of an internal haemorrhage. Bibianne becomes suicidal, but somehow manages to save herself after plunging into the river in her car. Determined to set things right, she ends up meeting the man's son, Evian (Jean-Nicholas Verrault), who falls in love with her, not knowing she's his father's accidental murderer. Bibianne has been given a second chance -- but will her guilt allow her to take it?

Montreal filmmaker Denis Villeneuve burst on the scene during Radio Canada's 1990/91 Europe-Asia Race, during which he directed 20 short videos and won first prize. He went on to direct many award-winning music videos, and appeared as an actor in the 1995 film Zigrail. In 1996, Villeneuve wrote and directed a segment of the anthology film Cosmos, which won that year's Prix International des Cinemas d'Art et d'Essai at Cannes. His first feature, August 32 On Earth (1998), was selected as the official Canadian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1999 Academy Awards. Maelstrom is Villeneuve's second feature film.

"The ocean doesn't want me today," grouses the sepulcheral voice of Tom Waits, as Bibianne Champagne (Marie-Josee Croze) propels herself headlong through a tide of self-destructive behavior which just keeps on rising ever higher, ever blacker and ever deeper with each new drink, cigarette and anonymous, unprotected fuck-of-the-night. Since she conducts her entire life like a drive-by, it should come as no particular surprise when--too craven, apparently, to kill herself outright--she finally manages to kill someone else.