We Forgot to Break Up, a great Canadian indie, will make movie goers feel like they’re part of the film’s featured band. A fitting experience considering the leading musicians always feel part of their own collective; no matter how old they are, how inspired or bored they become, and despite feeling the strain of their own growing pains.

Canadian filmmaker Karen Knox (Adult Adoption) chronicles the pinballing career of The New Normals, a fictitious trans-fronted band from Emmett Lake, Ontario. The band doesn’t want to be labelled as anything in particular other than being “kick ass”, and they want to share the spotlight together. Despite taking their aspirations seriously by moving to Toronto as an unconventional “family”, The New Normals struggle to keep their creative motivations active. They’re also intimately conflicted, as lead singer Evan (Lane Webber) juggles a romantic relationship with keyboardist Isis (June LaPorte of You Can Live Forever) and a more passionate affair with guitarist Lugh (Brotherhood’s Daniel Gravelle). The music takes a new shape when Evan and Lugh start collaborating more, evolving the music into works that are more heartfelt and, frankly, catchier. As Isis tries to keep her jealousy in check, The New Normals start finding the right opportunities to achieve their goals to become indie rock sensations.

Adapting Kayt Burgess’ novel Heidegger Stairwell, Knox captures raw and rocky emotions within this uninhibited and often unreliable environment; and doing so without borrowing from typical biopic tropes too often. The chemistry between the musicians help convey scenes of excitement as the band has breakthroughs which sometimes leads to demonstrations of how romantic the creative process can be. These ignitions, however, also lead to sombre revelations; hinting towards how unfocused and unfulfilled the band may be in other, more personal, areas.

Apart from the naturalistic performances and Knox’s affective fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, We Forgot to Break Up impresses audiences with its fun turn-of-the-century throwback – providing Canadians with an ideal double feature of Knox’s crowd-pleaser with Sook-Yin Lee’s runaway, sex-friendly hit Paying For It.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie