Canadian rockers July Talk take on the myth of the midlife crisis in new rom-com

Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis are photographed in Toronto as they promote the move 'Middle Life' on Thursday, April 2, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — If there’s one thing July Talk knows, it’s tension.

The Juno-winning Toronto band built its sound on the contrast between Peter Dreimanis’ raspy growl and Leah Fay Goldstein’s sugar-soft delivery — a push-and-pull that keeps their live shows feeling unpredictable, even feral.

So when the longtime partners in work and life decided to co-star in a romantic comedy, it was a surprise, but not a leap.

“It felt like the right time to collaborate in a different way other than music, because we’ve been making records together for a long time, over a decade now,” says Goldstein over coffee at one of the band’s haunts in Toronto’s Junction area.

“And we also had just had a kid.”

While both have acted — with Dreimanis coming off a supporting role in last year’s Oscar darling “Sinners” — “Middle Life” marks their first time sharing the big screen, arriving at a particularly meaningful juncture.

“It was a really key moment to be asked to collaborate on a new thing together while figuring out child care together and how we are going to like, actually physically make this work, where we both need to be out of the house and not with our very young two-year-old child,” says Goldstein, adding that the couple is currently expecting their second child.

The Canadian rom-com stars Goldstein as a wedding planner and new mom whose carefully mapped-out life is thrown off course after a roadside accident leads to an unlikely connection with a plumber, played by Dreimanis.

Writer-director Pavan Moondi hits familiar genre beats — nodding to ’80s staples like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Crossing Delancey” — while quietly rethinking the midlife crisis.

For Dreimanis, the film is less about crisis than possibility.

“We’re at a point where middle life doesn’t mean your 50s, in a Ferrari, balding, having a crisis, cheating on your wife — it means being 35 to 40, which is now when people have kids,” he says.

“There’s this idea that the decisions you make once you have children sort of petrify your life and freeze your decision-making. And some of the coolest art I’ve interacted with lately is breaking down that rule and actually saying, ‘No, your free will doesn’t expire the minute you have a kid.’”

He points to Miranda July’s 2024 perimenopause novel “All Fours” as an example that challenges the notion that growing older means losing the ability to evolve.

“Just because society stops taking you seriously when you come of age in life — and maybe your art doesn’t get the front page anymore — doesn’t mean you stop being a person with free will that can change who you are and redefine yourself.”

It’s an idea Dreimanis has been putting into practice. His role as a singing vampire in “Sinners” — which came after director Ryan Coogler heard his solo cover of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song — pushed him into unfamiliar territory and offered a kind of creative reset.

He says he went into the horror-musical blockbuster expecting a certain kind of Hollywood machine. What he found instead was something closer to a band.

“I feel like it really was, at its core, this group of friends from film school making a film together. Coogler’s whole community are his best friends,” says Dreimanis.

“It seemed like all of their skills had been honed through collaboration and an openness and curiosity to not knowing the answers to every question.”

Watching that kind of environment shifted something in him, especially after he’d grown “jaded” by a system where years of work can feel disposable.

“Making a film, it takes like a decade,” says Dreimanis, who has also worked as a cinematographer, including on Moondi’s previous features “Sundowners” and “Diamond Tongues,” which both starred Goldstein.

“You’re holding this thing in your hand that’s meant to have this immense amount of value because you’ve sacrificed everything in your life to make it — and in fact, because of the realities of streaming and film consumption, it isn’t treated like it has any value.”

But “Sinners,” he says, helped reframe his thinking: “Everything sucks, yes, but the reason you want to do it can’t be ignored, which is that you love working with your community.”

Dreimanis came back to Toronto wanting to make a movie with his friends — and especially with Goldstein after time working apart.

“It was alienating as core collaborators — ‘Sinners’ was the first time where we had a real drastic shift in the symmetry of our working relationship,” he says.

“That was a new thing for our relationship, because we really set up our lives in a way where we’re just constantly working together,” adds Goldstein, noting they approach parenting the same way.

But the duo says stepping into scenes together for the first time felt familiar.

“We have a lot of experience on stage sharing power and sharing attention and just playing with that balance,” says Goldstein.

“Sometimes I’m in a more supportive role, sometimes Peter’s in a supportive role. That lent itself really well to this film.”

They’re rolling “Middle Life” out like a tour — a Toronto premiere on Friday followed by city-by-city screenings throughout Canada featuring Q&As with the cast and crew.

A noticeable wave of musicians is moving into film right now, from Teyana Taylor to Charli XCX to Alana Haim.

For Dreimanis, the crossover isn’t surprising — it’s almost necessary.

“You’re always making your best work when you’re inspired by something else, you know? Something that’s not as familiar to you,” he says.

“It’s a good exercise to go work somewhere else, and then come back to the stage.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2026.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press