Director Mathieu Denis asks what you’re willing to pay in TIFF’s ‘The Cost of Heaven’

"The Cost of Heaven" director Mathieu Denis is shown in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - TIFF (Mandatory Credit)

TORONTO — “The Cost of Heaven” is an invitation for audiences to think about what our society values and how far we’d go to secure it, says Montreal writer-director Mathieu Denis.

He turned the question over in his mind for years before he made the film, watching the capitalism machine demand ever-more growth.

It premieres on Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival, despite a moment in May of 2020, right after he finally started writing the script, when he thought maybe it was no longer relevant.

He was cycling a lot in those days to stay active while the gyms were closed, and he would frequently ride up Mount Royal, stopping at the top to rest and look out over the mountain.

“I had never seen so far in the distance from the top of the mountain. Never,” he said.

“And the reason why I was seeing so far at that point was because ... no one was driving their cars anymore. There was not atmospheric pollution. And so the horizon was infinite all of a sudden.

“And that happened within a month of just stopping everything.”

Alas, he said, it didn’t last.

“What we started hearing about was: whoa, we can’t do this. We cannot stop. Even for a month, stopping for a month was too much. The whole fabric of society was going to collapse on itself and crumble. So the message we’re getting is we need to start the machine again.”

Now, five years later, “The Cost of Heaven” is debuting at TIFF and it feels just as relevant as ever.

It’s a psychological thriller with a heavy emphasis on the psychological — a Quebecois “Uncut Gems” underscored by looming dread rather than frenetic anxiety.

The French-language film follows Nacer, an immigrant to Quebec who seems to be living the upper middle-class fantasy. He has a loving wife and three precocious kids, a beautiful home in Montreal and a thriving community of friends. But it’s not enough for him: his proximity to wealth makes a more lavish lifestyle feel irresistible.

As Nacer strives to climb higher, he ends up digging himself into a financial hole — and the only way for him to get out unscathed requires a heinous act.

Though Nacer’s circumstances are specific and highly personal, Denis said, his motives are shaped by the same forces that affect us all.

“We’ve been living in this unchallenged economic system, and what this system requires of us as an individual is changing us. And I think it’s slowly killing our empathy for one another and ... chipping away at our own sense of humanity, at our own sense of collectivity,” he said.

It means that many people feel like Nacer — like the system has pushed them up against a wall.

“The temperature is obviously off the charts. We’ve got the fires. People are working like crazy. The cost of living is getting unmanageable. The air pollution is insane,” he said.

“I once thought, maybe it’s not going to be like that anymore. But no, actually, it’s more like that than it ever was.”

“The Cost of Heaven,” titled “Gagne ton ciel” in French, premieres Tuesday and screens again on Wednesday evening.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2025.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press