Now Streaming: JESSICA FOREVER, Mesmerizing Melancholy

Love is all you need, sometimes. But not always.

Jessica Forever
A Shudder Original. Now streaming on Shudder. Also available on Shudder Canada and Shudder UK.

As emotional storms rage, Jessica alone restores peace.

In a world where an army of military drones hunts down and kills orphans who have risen up violently against their rule, Jessica (Aomi Muyock) rescues the young men and offers them unconditional love. She is their mother, their leader, and their ray of hope.

The young men are emotionally troubled and violently inclined, yet find rare solace and emotional comfort in Jessica's makeshift family. They are well-armed and ready to defend themselves, even as they seek to live peacefully in a world that is defined with few, if any, markers.

We see this in young Kevin (Eddy Solveng), who is taken into the group, and then with Michael (Sebastian Urzendowsky) and Lucas (Augustin Raguenet), group members who are tasked with establishing a new base for the group on a sparsely-populated island. There, Michael comes into contact with the independent Camille (Maya Coline). Then he must confront his own demons, along with the other young men.

Allusions to past creative works, including various versions of Peter Pan and, perhaps more pointedly, Lucile Hadžihalilović's Innocence (2004), float to mind as the calm, precisely-composed images in Jessica Forever arrive and proceed to burrow their way into the various levels of the subconscious. An engaging sense of melancholy permeates the screen, along with something that feels less like doom and more like mournful tragedy.

Directed by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, drawn from their original screenplay in collaboration with Mariette Désert, Jessica Forever pierces the heart of complacency, spinning a mesmerizing tale of love, loss, and what life really means.

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