The Guide to the Perfect Family 2021

Rose Dubois, Emilie Bierre, is a bright yet heavily pressured high-school student who must juggle dance, hockey, and tutoring sessions, all under the stern gaze of her father, Martin Dubois, Louis Morissette. He believes that every choice in Grade 11 will shape her future, warning that failure could land her in low-wage work, like a cashier at a convenience store. The weight of his expectations looms large as Rose moves through a world where performance is not just encouraged, it is demanded.

Pier-Luc Roy, Jean-Carl Boucher, enters the picture as a new hire who is the son of a colleague. He is introduced with a blunt self-assessment: “I don’t work under pressure.” The truth, however, is more nuanced: he is driven to achieve, but he hates heavy workloads and resists repercussions from his supervisor. This clash of work ethic and pressure sets up a tension that soon has real consequences, as Martin ends up losing a significant promotion after a major contract falls under Pier-Luc’s responsibility.

The family pressure does not stay confined to Rose’s academic life. After school, she faces relentless reminders from her father about the path he wants for her—dance and hockey practice, tutoring, and above all, stellar performance in Grade 11. The message is clear: success now is the gatekeeper to a secure future. In this high-pressure environment, Rose makes harmful choices to cope with the strain, turning to drugs and trading for past exam papers in an attempt to stay ahead and meet the impossible standard set for her.

As exams draw near, Martin proposes a weekend getaway to visit Rose’s grandparents by a lake in the woods, hoping the time away will help them reconnect. What starts as a hopeful effort to mend their strained relationship soon tests the boundaries of their bond. A conflict erupts during an activity that initially promises to be a bonding moment, and Rose uses the opportunity to voice a painful truth: she feels she never lives up to her father’s aspirations.

Returning to the city, Rose ends up living with her mother, Caroline, a shift that compounds the emotional strain inside the family. During a mother-daughter evening, Rose slips back into her old routine of hiding her struggles. She goes back to their apartment, drinks a bottle of wine, and takes a large number of pills she finds in a cupboard after secretly checking her final exams online. The morning after, Caroline finds her daughter unconscious in the bathroom, and an ambulance is summoned to rush her to the hospital.

Rose pulls through the crisis, and mother and daughter share apologies and a fragile sense of reconciliation. She eventually goes back home with Martin, and the family begins to face the road ahead with a renewed, albeit cautious, sense of contact. In a quiet moment at a park not long after, the trio—father, daughter, and little brother Mathis—go for ice cream. Mathis, Thomas Vallieres, heads toward the swings, trips, and falls. Rose tells Martin to let the boy learn on his own, a small but telling gesture about growing up and letting life’s mishaps teach through experience rather than overprotection.