“Denis crafts an intimate, slow thriller, building equity through thrift.”
“Elon Musk Could Become First Trillionaire Under New Tesla Pay Plan” – The New York Times, 5 September 2025
Success is measured persistently as a commitment to the accumulation of wealth, associated downfalls and decay merely sidenotes on the quest for banknotes. It’s never enough, with dangling karats scrolled across our screens, unending, and status upgrades regenerating even as our base compulsion remains the same. Money is the badge of fortune, be it Swiss franc or bitcoin, and the calling card of clout. Power may actualize as the extraordinary, trillion-dollar whisper into the ear of a world leader or simply appear as a more modest donation to a private grade school. In an era where corruption intersects blatantly with capital, Mathieu Denis’ The Cost of Heaven trades political backrooms and financial corridors for an analysis of a steadfast man at the threshold of ruin, consequences scaled but nonetheless dire.
In keen opposition to its thematic focus, The Cost of Heaven is a film of restraint and economy. Its narrative is straightforward, tense but frugal. Nacer Belkacem (Samir Guesmi) is a principled family man with a solid, if nondescript, office job and a well-kept, modest house on a tree-lined street. He is the doting father of three children enrolled in a prestigious Montréal private school. His wife Farrah (a resplendent Meriem Medjkane) is loving. Within his tight-knit immigrant community, Nacer is a friend and a leader. This is a good life. This is a fabrication.
From the opening moments in a Lexus dealership as Nacer casually browses the epitome of achievable automotive luxury, dissatisfaction intrudes. Cinematographer Sara Mishara bathes the nondescript showroom in filtered winter light, casting a heightened commercial ambience over a presumably inconsequential interaction. Soon, as Nacer and family enjoy a cozy dinner where he playfully teases his kids about lists for Santa Claus, their home is warmly lit for security and warmth and joy. Even an after-dinner smoke break on the porch is lensed with utilitarian appeal. Indeed, the camera and compositions of The Cost of Heaven express beauty and worth that Nacer fails to see. In the shadows, in the darkness of a Québécois December, however, maybe these visual articulations are just further deceptions, lulls before the gale?
Deceit also masks crisis. In scene after scene, the unravelling of his finances emerges, though Nacer spins and spins forward with diversions and excuses. As each rotation spirals closer to calamity, his ambition propels ruinous decisions. He mismanages a friend’s investments. He is behind in payments to his children’s school. When a promotion is teased by his manager, desire obscures propriety. Nacer doubles down, seemingly lost in the pursuit of wealth espoused by celebrity businessman Ben Novak (Vlasta Vrána), a hybrid of Shark Tank impresarios, as well as Warren Buffet and Logan Roy. Bad judgement soon cascades into wrongdoing, misdeeds into crime. When a chance encounter casts Nacer into Novak’s orbit, the trajectory is irreversible. His world capsizes – quite literally.
The Cost of Heaven dips into the milieu of middle-class greed with pragmatism. The lust here is frequently material, sometimes abstract, feigned as devotion before descending into a plight of self-absorption and ambition. Mathieu Denis crafts an intimate, slow thriller, building equity through thrift. There’s a restrained ruthlessness to the approach, even if the descriptive austerity yields character development and socio-cultural implications somewhat unexplored. The intention is an asset, however, and The Cost of Heaven rewards with a thoughtful, devastating return.