Seven Veils Review: An Operatic Drama With Impressive Performances And Missed Opportunities [TIFF 2023]
Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) has an enormous task ahead of her. She's helmed some regional projects before, but remounting a Canadian Opera Company production of the legendary opera "Salome" is by far her biggest challenge yet. There's a lot to do, it turns out, beyond just directing — from wrangling difficult actors, and ever-changing politics at the opera house, as the executives are particularly concerned with her desire to create small, yet meaningful changes to "Salome." On top of all of that, there's Jeanine's biggest hurdle: her father directed "Salome" at the same place, creating an enormous sense of responsibility shadowed by a deeply troubled past.
There are a lot of moving pieces to "Seven Veils," as the film revolves around the various complexities of staging an opera. The scale is immense, and director Atom Egoyan makes great work of the mammoth structure of the Four Seasons opera house in Toronto, highlighting both the enormity of the stage with expansive wide shots and tighter framing to highlight the intimacy of putting on a performance. But all the different pieces don't come together in a satisfying way, and many feel like they'd make sense as their own film entirely.
Egoyan's script feels like it's juggling a few different feature film ideas, and because it bites off more than it can chew, it doesn't manage to tell any of the stories in a cohesive, satisfying manner. That's particularly true of the subplots, which drop off suddenly only to reappear again much later. The entire cast impresses and is committed to their characters, but the same can't be said of Egoyan's script, which is far more interested in Jeanine. As a result, none of the subplots really receive a satisfying conclusion (or even a satisfying follow-through), which only makes the film more incohesive.
The shining star of "Seven Veils" is Amanda Seyfried, who commits wholly to her character Jeanine. It's hugely compelling to watch Seyfried perform — her eyes are so expressive, fully channeling Jeanine's drive and how overwhelming she finds the whole process, though she still has more than enough talent to get the job done and deliver a world-class rendition of Salome. There's a moment in which Jeanine is watching a particular part of the production in rehearsal, and the demons from her past finally make sense to her, and she's completely distraught, yet utterly transfixed by the beauty of the performance. It's riveting and symbolic of how great "Seven Veils" could be if it wasn't delivered in such a wildly shifting, confounding package.
Can't quite bring it all together
"Seven Veils" spends most of its runtime slowly but surely building tension, as Jeanine's psyche struggles under not only the weight of expectations, but the pressure of the expectations of her father, who has passed away. It's the role of her father that impacts her direction and life more than she could have ever imagined, and it's this pressure that manifests in occasionally nerve-shredding tension. With the intensity ratcheting upwards, it feels like something major is coming — a twist or revelation that will send everything careening into utter madness. But just as "Seven Veils" feels like it's going for the jugular, it just ... stops. After spending time getting invested in Jeanine's journey, it almost feels like cheating to have everything suddenly deflate into a hugely disappointing ending that feels very much like an afterthought.
Egoyan has often used home video to interrogate the past, particularly in his 1993 film "Calendar." That's a theme present in "Seven Veils," as young Jeanine appears in a home video of her performing parts of "Salome" filmed by her father in a forest. They're eerie, probing moments that highlight Jeanine's lived experience effectively, and they create a genuine sense of mystery that keeps viewers on their toes, wondering what exactly it all means. This is a film fascinated by personal histories, examining how our experiences inform and define us, motivate us, thrill us, or even terrify us. It's one of the most successful parts of "Seven Veils," which often connects us to Jeanine's psyche, creating an unsettling effect, even if the film finds itself distracted by too many other elements that aren't as convincing.
Buried within unpredictable tonal shifts and a bunch of different and intriguing pieces, "Seven Veils" could have been great. I've long been an admirer of Egoyan's work. His previous film, 2019's "Guest Of Honor" effectively gets under your skin, and he's made some of the finest films ever made — "Exotica" in 1994 is one of the best films of the '90s, so Egoyan is no stranger to a masterpiece. But "Seven Veils" feels like Egoyan struggling under his own expectations, just like Jeanine begins to crumble under hers. The director has a deep connection to the opera of "Salome," having directed an interaction of it in the same building "Seven Veils" was filmed in Toronto. It feels at times as if the film is more interested in "Salome" as an opera than it is in Jeanine or anyone in the actual film. Perhaps if I was more familiar with "Salome" (though the film goes to considerable lengths to explore the opera itself) it would have felt more effective to me — perhaps someone with a greater understanding of opera would adore every second of this curious, ambitious film.
/Film Rating: 5 out of 10