Concrete Valley

Sensitive and intimate might be the obvious adjectives for such a film, but Bourges is also intent on making Concrete Valley quite funny in parts, the humane humour balancing the ever-present anxiety that exists in many of Thorncliffe Park’s hallways and crowded elevators.

Concrete Valley reveals itself as a thrilling example, both in form and content, of the way that the fostering of community allows us to regain some measure of control over life’s adversities.

It’s a bit difficult to find your footing in the first half-hour of “Concrete Valley,” and it’s arguable that in addition to starting too shapeless, the film ends too shaped. But niggles about calibration aside, the on-the-nose ending is a gut punch.

Concrete Valley is a loving, lovely portrait of a corner of the city that, unless you live there, is probably either a blank spot on your map or a region you drive through to get somewhere else.

So much of Concrete Valley adopts a quiet, almost off-putting awkwardness that you’ll either embrace or not.