Charting a spectacularly erratic 24-hour course, the movie juggles self-consciously hokey small-town comedy with slick (or at least semi-slick) high-tech chase scenes as the road-racing desperado leads Forest Whitaker and the feds on a merry chase through the Southwest in his prototype Corvette 01.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The director, Xavier Dolan, also co-stars as Francis, a young man who, with his best friend, Marie (Monia Chokri), hovers swoonfully around Nicolas (Niels Schneider), an impulsive, model-like party animal whose mop of golden curls hides the blithering emptiness of his gaze as he leads them on a merry chase of erotic desperation while basking in their adulation.

NEWYORKER: Heartbeats