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By Dan Leone

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PROBABLY THE FIRST Canadian surrealist romance ever to get a U.S. release – well, there can't be many of them, period – Denis Villeneuve's Maelström is one very odd journey from the vaguely unpleasant and baffling to the quite captivating (but still kinda baffling). Discontented heir to her mother's haute couture empire, model Bibiane Champagne (Marie-Josée Croze) is taking life mostly up the nose and in straight double shots before a drunken accident turns her slow self-destruction into a guilt-stricken plunge. Certain she's killed an old man – and, perhaps worse, gotten away with it – she loses herself in morbid fascination with his late, lonely life. This in turn causes her path to cross with the deceased's son, oceanographer Evian (Jean-Nicolas Verreault). Love follows, bringing its own fresh load of killing bad conscience. Darkly humorous, brilliantly shot, unpredictable, and sometimes off-putting, the movie only starts to add up once it hits the conventional romantic curve – a genuine sweetness begins to pervade both story and heroine, leading to a surprisingly touching conclusion. Oh, did I mention it's all narrated by a talking fish on a butcher block? Sort of a cross between Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy and early Jeunet-Caro collaborations (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children), Maelström is idiosyncratic to the nth degree, yet ultimately very charming. See Movie Clock for show times. (Dennis Harvey)