Published May 10, 2010 in The Peak
– Student Newspaper of Simon Fraser University

The 2010 SFU 4th Year Film Screenings
By: Adam Cristobal – Arts Editor

EXCERPT

Salvation,
Sonia Suvagau

Phoebe is a champion WASP with a tendency to high-handedly stick to narrow perceptions of morality, and finds herself haggard and soot faced with a torn dress and trapped in the empty hippy commune where she spent her childhood years with her lassez-faire mother. Apparently hit on the sidewalk by a car driven by insufferable hooligans while she righteously marched around her neighborhood in an attempt to uphold the block watch, Phoebe gradually realizes that she has been sentenced to hell, and is confronted with a hilariously masochistic Lucifer or, as he tells her to call him, “Lu.”

Resistant to Lucifer’s almost seductive approaches and assertions that she is as good as damned, Phoebe recounts her actions in life and gradually realizes that, despite nearly never missing Sunday mass and almost sickeningly cheerful mannerisms, her confinement to hell is not without grounds. Suvagau orchestrates a near-therapeutic session of pseudopsychoanalysis between Lucifer and Phoebe as the latter attempts to mentally untangle the mess of her life, going so far as to have Lucifer exhausted, red-eyed, and unable to tolerate Phoebe’s chattering. Peppered with wit and driven by stellar acting, Salvation’s strength lies within the personalities of its characters. Ultimately, Suvagau is able to bring a clever take and twist to the classic tale of divine come-uppance.