Movie Review: The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan ** / *****

Directed by: Xavier Dolan.

Written by: Xavier Dolan and Jacob Tierney.

Starring: Kit Harington (John F. Donovan), Jacob Tremblay (Rupert Turner), Natalie Portman (Sam Turner), Susan Sarandon (Grace Donovan), Thandie Newton (Audrey Newhouse), Ben Schnetzer (Rupert Turner - Adult), Emily Hampshire (Amy Bosworth), Sarah Gadon (Liz Jones), Jared Keeso (James Donovan), Kathy Bates (Barbara Haggermaker), Michael Gambon (Narrator).

 

Xavier Dolan turned 30 this year, a few months after his first English language film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan debuted to horrible reviews at the Film Festival – so perhaps it’s time to stop referring to him as a wunderkind. His career got off to a great start with I Killed My Mother, and continued through Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways, Tom at the Farm and his best, most acclaimed film, Mommy. It seemed like Dolan was trying on different genres for size through this part of his career – while still coming back to his regular themes and obsessions. Despite winning a top prize at Cannes his next film, It’s Only the End of the World, was generally seen as a misfire – it felt like a departure to a certain extent for Dolan, but the result also felt like someone yelling in your face for two hours, and was for me, a miserable experience. Since then, Dolan has starred in a few Hollywood films (Boy Erased, It: Chapter 2) and now, more than a year after it hit festivals, his latest film limps onto VOD platforms. The Death and Life of John F. Donovan is certainly not a good film – but it’s also not the miserable one that It’s Only the End of the World was. It marks Dolan’s first English language film – and he brings along his favorite obsessions and style, into a story that doesn’t need it. There are good things in the film – from a fine performance by young Jacob Tremblay, to some wonderfully cheesy musical moments (a bath time singalong is the highlight of the movie). Yet, at some point, you wonder when a 30-year-old who has already made films called I Killed My Mother and Mommy, will get over his mommy issues – and make a film about something else.

 

The version we see is apparently a truncated one that Dolan found in editing down a much longer film – one that included Jessica Chastain, who has been fully excised from the film. And to be honest, it certainly feels like a choppy film – a film with a lot missing. I don’t necessarily think a longer film would have been a better one – there’s a lot here that I doubt could possibly work regardless of the context, but I don’t think it helps much. The film basically cuts back and forth between three storylines. The title character is a TV star played by Kit Harrington – a closeted man, who worries about what being open will do to his career. He has had a pen pal relationship for years with young Rupert Turner (Tremblay), a child actor, who moves with his mother to England following his parents’ divorce. The framing device is an older Rupert (Ben Schnetzer) telling his – and Donovan’s – story to a reporter, played by Thandie Newton, who looks at this assignment as beneath her – telling the story a nearly forgotten TV star who has been dead for a decade now.

 

Now, if I was Dolan, looking for something to cut for time and pacing, then those scenes with the older Rupert and the reporter would be the first to go. They’re poorly written, with stilted dialogue, and Schnetzer and Newton do nothing to save them. Quite frankly, it’s an unnecessary framing device. The film works far better when Tremblay is at the center of it. He plays a kid that cannot hide his love of Donovan or the cheesy TV show he’s on. Tremblay doesn’t play him as a wide eyed innocent – but innocent enough, in that way that only kids have when they fall in love with something in pop culture. He can hardly believe his luck when Donovan writes him back, and they start to be real friends – if only in those letters. The bullies at his school are one note to be sure – but when are bullies not one note?

 

Harrington is also quite good as the tortured Donovan – the TV star on the brink of real stardom away from the teen idol show. He is gay, and knows it, but hides it from those around him – expecting his kind of sort of boyfriend to not be quite as open as he wants to be. Basically, Donovan only has his brother and Rupert that he can really open up to – other than that, he’s constantly on guard.

 

Around these scenes that work though, are many that don’t. I’m not quite sure why Dolan insists on having tortured mother/son relationships in every one of his movies – but here we are. In fact, in this film we get two – as Tremblay is at war with his mother, a role Natalie Portman cannot make work, and Harrington is at war with his mother, Susan Sarandon. Both are pretty much the same horrible mothers Dolan always has in his films. I assume the goal was to draw connections between Rupert and Donovan – but frankly, it wasn’t needed – and worse than that, they basically devolve into one screaming match after another – all of which Dolan has done before (often) much better than he does here.

 

In short, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan is a mess of a film – perhaps an ambitious mess, but a mess just the same. To be honest, most of Dolan’s films are messes – but usually better messes than this. Smartly, Dolan has already made another film – and while that one (Matthias and Maxime) hasn’t gotten amazing reviews, it has mainly been seen as somewhat a return to form for Dolan. He needs it – after making two misfires in a row. This one at least, is an interesting misfire.