Starring Michelle Giroux, Jonas Chernick, and Tatiana Maslany. Unrated. Opens Friday, June 28, at the Vancity Theatre

Why haven’t any of us received anonymous letters saying we’re beautiful and special and egregiously unappreciated? And where is our secret “friend” who wants to help us “get what we’re after”? In our case, that would be several gym bags of cash in large bills, but anyway…

This is the titillating situation in which uncomfortably numb pharmacist Nicole (Michelle Giroux) finds herself in the sneakily ambitious Canadian thriller Blood Pressure. Her boss, Stu (Kristian Bruun), is on her back so incessantly she should get an adult-sized baby carrier. Meanwhile, workaholic husband Mike (Judah Katz) apparently hasn’t noticed he has a hot wife, and teenagers Kat and Josh (Tatiana Maslany and Jake Epstein) see Mom as the 24-hour chauffeur they never tip.

When mystery letters start turning up in this humdrum hell, we’re as intrigued as Nicole. Her admirer sends gifts—plane ticket to Oaxaca!—that totally spell ultrathoughtful stalker. It feels like we’re going to get either a creepy but admittedly exciting psychosexual thrill ride or, if Hollywood was involved, a bizarro Nicholas Sparks–style romance.

Once Nicole starts doing her new friend’s bidding—including stalking someone herself (um, Nicole)—suspension-of-disbelief issues creep in. In her feature-film debut, Giroux is such a soulful, empathetic presence that we initially forgive the fact that events move along too easily and Nicole only belatedly considers investigating things. But then the story takes several highly questionable turns and, well, hmm, may we start again?

Director-cowriter Sean Garrity (My Awkward Sexual Adventure) comes close but no cigar—okay, Blood Pressure lights up a coolly atmospheric cigarillo—in terms of tying twists and themes together satisfyingly. Yes, Nicole gets cattle-prodded out of her bored-doormat existence, but was getting there worth it?

And, Nicole, you have the worst way with a Glock ever.