{"id":487185,"date":"2026-02-20T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487185\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T08:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:00:11","slug":"in-middle-life-a-canadian-rock-star-couple-trade-the-concert-hall-for-a-big-screen-romcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487185\/","title":{"rendered":"In Middle Life, a Canadian rock-star couple trade the concert hall for a big-screen romcom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis are the couple at the core of the Toronto rock group July Talk.Supplied<\/p>\n

Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis are experts at blurring the line between the personal and the professional. <\/p>\n

As the couple at the core of the Toronto rock group July Talk<\/a> \u2013 Dreimanis is the guitarist with the gravel-throated baritone, Goldstein is the sweeter-voiced singer \u2013 the two have long learned to balance the creative highs of marathon studio sessions and the thrill of deafening live performance alongside the sometimes less glamorous duties of managing a household and raising a toddler. <\/p>\n

Yet in the charming and droll new Canadian romcom Middle Life<\/a>, the two are asked to take their creative and romantic lives, toss them in the blender and hit the pulse button. When the film begins, Goldstein\u2019s character, Andie, is in a situation not too dissimilar to the performer\u2019s own life: trying to balance her career ambitions with the responsibility of raising a young child. And then there\u2019s Dreimanis\u2019s character, Ryan, an eccentric who seems to wander to the beat of his own drum. But the two aren\u2019t romantically attached \u2013 at least, not initially. <\/p>\n

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Instead, Andie is married to a real dud of a dude (played by Luke Lalonde), while Ryan is a plumber with a metaphorically apt urinary-tract condition. Can a chance and intense encounter involving a car crash push these two mismatched souls together? More importantly, did the real-life couple\u2019s relationship survive a run-and-gun shoot in which they play would-be lovers pulled together and apart by one crisis after another? <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy rehearsing for the first time together in that way. We\u2019d never even acted together, it wasn\u2019t our mode,\u201d Dreimanis says one afternoon from the basement of the pair\u2019s Toronto home, with Goldstein Zooming in from the floor above. (The two are experts at time-management, conducting the interview while their three year old naps upstairs.) \u201cWe\u2019ve been on hundreds of stages together \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd collaborated in all other ways,\u201d Goldstein adds. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s indie music and film scenes are inextricably intermingled.Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I remember the first night when we rehearsed scenes together, as if we had just met, and it was just fun to play. Our whole relationship is grounded, but I think we just take on new things all the time. If somebody asks us to do something, we have to have a pretty good reason to say no. We\u2019re interested in challenging each other and ourselves. We\u2019re just really big \u2018yes\u2019 people.\u201d<\/p>\n

And no filmmaker has a better window into the couple\u2019s \u201cyes\u201d tendencies than Pavan Moondi<\/a>. The Canadian writer-director, now based in Los Angeles, has known Goldstein and Dreimanis for more than a decade, stretching back to his 2015 comedy Diamond Tongues, which starred Goldstein as an aspiring actress and was shot by Dreimanis. The threesome would reunite two years later for Sundowners, which also featured Lalonde, whose band, Born Ruffians, has long collaborated with July Talk. <\/p>\n

If Toronto\u2019s indie music and film scenes sound inextricably intermingled, well, that\u2019s because they are. Moondi first pitched the idea of Middle Life to Goldstein and Dreimanis during the wedding of the film\u2019s eventual cinematographer \u2013 and veteran music-video director \u2013 Jared Raab<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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\u201cBack during Diamond Tongues, we were still figuring each other out, it was a completely different type of relationship. But we stayed friends, and every time I\u2019d come back to Toronto, I\u2019d stay at their place, and over time we\u2019d talk about filmmaking as they started getting more into that, with their music videos,\u201d says Moondi. \u201cI always had it in the back of my head, this two-sentence movie idea about someone who is in a car accident and the effect that near-death experience has on them pushes them into a newfound appreciation of life. And so I pitched the idea right during Jared\u2019s wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Goldstein and Dreimanis, the closeness and longevity of their relationship to Moondi engendered a crucial level of trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known him for so long now and have read so many of Pavan\u2019s scripts over the years. And the great thing is that, at any given moment, he\u2019s someone who aims to defy genre. Diamond Tongues and Sundowners were completely different experiences from Middle Life,\u201d Goldstein says. \u201cThis was an experiment for us. But Pete also had the acting bug, having just come off of Sinners.\u201d <\/p>\n

Up to that moment in his career, Dreimanis knew little else but the sweat-equity, behind-the-scenes life of Canadian indie film. Yet this time, he joined the production shortly after stepping in front of the camera for a crucial supporting role in Ryan Coogler\u2019s mega-budget, Oscar-nominated thriller Sinners, where he plays one half of a Southern couple turned into vampires by the film\u2019s lead villain. (Coogler cast Dreimanis after hearing his raspy cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s Bad Moon Rising.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI just grew up making independent films out in Alberta and I love that sort of summer camp feeling of making something with your friends. And Sinners deep down is just a bunch of friends making a movie, but with way more resources,\u201d says Dreimanis. But as he observed making Sinners, despite more resources, \u201cthey\u2019re still tight on time and barely pulling it off. Some things don\u2019t really change.\u201d<\/p>\n

What also isn\u2019t changing is the couple\u2019s commitment to music. When Middle Life makes its Ontario premiere at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival next week, its screening will be programmed alongside a live concert from both July Talk and Born Ruffians. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these industries, movies and music, seem to be changing by the minute, and it\u2019s hard to be reactive,\u201d says Dreimanis. \u201cBut we just love the process, because it means we\u2019re part of that artistic community.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the singers of July Talk being in a romcom was a pretty big left turn for us, it was not something that we ever imagined doing,\u201d Goldstein adds. \u201cIf we\u2019ve been asked five years ago, 10 years ago, with less perspective and experience, we wouldn\u2019t have done it. But I\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to do something out of nowhere, because that\u2019s what makes a life well lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Middle Life screens at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival Feb. 27 and Feb. 28, and plays Toronto\u2019s Revue Cinema April 10; July Talk and Born Ruffians play Kingston\u2019s Grand Theatre Feb. 27 (kingcanfilmfest.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis are the couple at the core of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,2922,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-487185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-noastack","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}