Universal Language is set in Winnipeg in an absurdist alternate future where Persian and French are the official languages of Canada. The snow-laden streets have turkeys wandering them, there are stores that sell nothing but Kleenex, and graveyards are bizarrely scattered among the freeways. Director Matthew Rankin has created a Canadian Wes Anderson film through and through. This is a stylish, heightened world of whimsy, where children are left to their own quests, navigating a world of adults who are so beset by their absurd problems that they barely take notice. But this is far from derivative — it is thoroughly original, stylish, and off-the-wall.
It is hard to say there are main characters because the movie is a tight web of interlocking stories that fold back on themselves in clever and outlandish ways as the seemingly random plot unfolds. The picture starts with a language teacher extravagantly berating his elementary school classroom. In a fury, he dismisses the class and says no one can return until a kid who lost his glasses (after being startled by a turkey) gets new ones. As the children wander the town, two of the friends of the de-spectacled kid find a large bill of currency frozen under the ice.
“…friends…find a large bill of currency frozen under the ice.”
This sets them on a quest to find an ice pick to retrieve the money that can buy their friend replacement glasses. Of course, nothing is easy for the kids, as an adult also chances upon the frozen currency and sends them on a wild goose chase so that he can have a crack at it himself. In the meantime, the kids go on an adventure that includes a cowboy-meets-used-car-salesman butcher, an alternate-reality Tim Hortons that serves tea in the dark, and a destitute adult trying to use a bag of walnuts as currency.
Universal Language is not exactly plot-driven, although the characters’ stories overlap and drive each other in surprising and delightful ways through connections that mainly come as revelations near the end. The film is so gloriously absurd that we are mainly driven through the narrative by the continuous reveal of new elements in this bizarre and hilarious universe. Still, when everything does come together at the end, there are some emotional payoffs that sneak up on you like a wandering turkey.
The style, set design, and photography are elements that sell Universal Language as an off-kilter yet smile-inducing quixotic universe. Think Wes Anderson or Tim Burton, crossed with an artistic, fanciful take on Winnipeg worthy of Guy Maddin. This isn’t as twee or happy as those filmmakers — Winnipeg in the winter makes it much more grounded and muted and, weirdly, sells the absurdity just a little more solidly.
Universal Language screened at the 2o24 Cannes Film Festival and the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.