Actor, writer, and director Gail Maurice returns to TIFF following her directorial debut film Rosie, which had its premiere at the Toronto film festival back in 2022. While Rosie presented itself as a dramedy, Gail Maurice goes more for a more serious tone with her next feature, Blood Lines.
The film follows the estranged relationship between mother and daughter Leonore (Gail Maurice) and Beatrice (Dana Solomon). Beatrice, a young adult cashier and part-time journalist, is visited by her estranged mother Leonore, who’s trying to reconnect after abandoning her during her youth. Now sober for a few years, Leonore wants to reconnect, much to the dismay of Beatrice. When the mysterious Chani (Derica Lynn Lafrance) enters their lives in search of her birth family, Beatrice is smitten by her not only in helping Chani find her birth family, but also pursuing a relationship with her.
Blood Lines fails to tell a cohesive story and jumbles up two different movies into one disjointed film. It flips back and forth from telling the story of a mother and daughter relationship to a romantic love story intersecting in between. There’s not a lot to invest in the characters and feels very messy. When it flips towards the mother daughter storyline, you forget the romantic storyline of the film and vice versa.
A portion of the film about Indigenous children being separated from their lineage at such a young age is never truly explored as much as the film sets up to be. Which is unfortunate because it is something that can educate the audience more on the culture. While the audience
does still some explored during their Métis community event, the inciting incident occurs and the film dives away from showcasing their heritage and focus more on the soap opera-esque nature of the mother-daughter relationship.
Despite its many flaws, I do admit Blood Lines does have good acting from the main stars Dana Solomon and Gail Maurice. Both deliver good performances and given the material, Dana Solomon does try her best. The humour, while hit or miss, does land well when it does. The storyline of Chani is the most well-thought-out because it is something going on in today’s world. Trying to find your family and discovering your history through tough the times. It is something a lot of people go through and if it were just that, then maybe it would have been a more cohesive film.
Blood Lines tries to tell an emotional driven story about family and discovering who you are and where you came from. Unfortunately, when it tries to mix an underdeveloped romance subplot, it feels too cluttered and Blood Lines does not fully grasp what it wants to be.
All images via Elevation Pictures.
Directed by Gail Maurice
Screenplay by Gail Maurice
Produced by Gail Maurice, Paula Devonshire, Jamie Manning
Starring Dana Solomon, Gail Maurice, Derica Lafrance
Premiere Date: September 8, 2025 (Toronto)
Running Time: 89 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 
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