Vital Signs(Movie, 2009)

Vital Signs (French: Les signes vitaux) is a Canadian drama film, directed by Sophie Deraspe and released in 2009. The film stars Marie-Hélène Bellavance as Simone, a young woman who responds to the death of her grandmother by abandoning her university studies to volunteer as a caregiver for the dying in a palliative care centre, while simultaneously juggling her casual relationship with musician Boris (Francis Ducharme). The cast also includes Marie Brassard, Suzanne St-Michel, Danielle Ouimet and Danielle Fichaud. The film was noted for the casting of Bellavance, a double leg amputee, in a role where her disability was part of the fabric of the character's life but not the primary narrative focus of the story, as well as for depicting Simone as a character who still had a sexual life instead of the more common film portrayal of disability as a barrier to sexuality. The film premiered at the Festival du nouv... ()