Movie Review: Matthias & Maxime

Matthias & Maxime *** ½ / *****
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written by: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas (Matthias), Xavier Dolan (Maxime), Anne Dorval (Manon), Harris Dickinson (McAfee), Marilyn Castonguay (Sarah), Pier-Luc Funk (Rivette), Catherine Brunet (Lisa), Antoine Pilon (Brass), Anne-Marie Cadieux (Martine), Alexandre Bourgeois (Julien), Louise Bombardier (Tante Ginette), Camille Felton (Erika), Adib Alkhalidey (Shariff), Connor McMahon (Avocat), Monique Spaziani (Colette), Samuel Gauthier (Frank), Jacques Lavallée (Me Courtemanche), Louis-Julien Durso (Matisse), Micheline Bernard (Francine). 

Xavier Dolan has been around for more than a decade now – and Mathias and Maxime is his 8^th film in that time. Given that, it’s easy to forget than he’s still only 31 years old – an age at which many filmmakers don’t even have one film under their belt, let alone 8 – most of whom played Cannes, in either Un Certain Regard or the Official Lineup, and many of them winning prizes there as well. It probably shouldn’t be overly surprising then that his filmography is as uneven as it is. He had a pretty good streak going with I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats, Lawrence Anyways and Mommy (I wasn’t much of a fan of Tom at the Farm) – before his last two films – It’s Only the End of the World and The Death and Life of John F. Donovan were widely panned (even still, the former won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, for some reason). Those experiences may have stung Dolan a little, because he’s dialed back his ambition for Mathias and Maxime – making a film that probably would have made more sense for his career trajectory around the I Killed My Mother and Heartbeats stage. It certainly isn’t his best film – and he still leans too heavily on some of the crutches that have held his career back a little – but it feels like a career reset in many ways.

 The plot will remind some of Lynn Shelton’s breakthrough Humpday, as it once again centers on two apparently straight male friends, whose feelings for each other are perhaps not quite so platonic. One a weekend getaway with the “boys”, Matthias (Gabriel D’Almedia Freitas) and Maxime (Xavier Dolan) are convinced to act in a student short for a bratty younger sister – only after they’ve agreed to participate do they find out they have to kiss in the film – something apparently they did once before, drunkenly, at a freshmen party. Dolan, cleverly, cuts to black right before their lips touch – but it’s a kiss that haunts the rest of the narrative anyway.

Before this, it seemed like this friend group was drifting apart. Mathias is a lawyer, with a promotion looming, and thinks it may be time to grow up – and leave behind his friends, who all he seems to have in common with is drunken memories. Maxime is about to move to Australia for two years – get a fresh start, away from his abusive, recovering addict mother (Anne Dorval, of course). His departure sets a clock on this relationship – on whether Mathias and Maxime will explore it, or even acknowledge it.

Dolan does reach into his bag of tricks probably too often here – I’m not sure we needed yet another turbulent mother/son relationship featuring Dorval and Dolan in their roles once again, although he changes it enough to imply that at least his character is over it – and has made the smart decision to get away. There is yet another sing-along to a pop song here as well – it was a cheesy highlight in The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, but that movie needed all the help it could get.

The film excels most when its concentrated on its two title characters – their vastly different lives, and their tenuous connection, which may, or may not, mean more to them. Dolan also excels at portraying the undeniable homoeroticism that lurks under all these bromances – these large groups of male friends who drink and party and wrestle, but, you know, they’re not gay – as they’ll protest a little too loudly. The rest of the friend group is kind of a homogeneous mass however – lacking in any real individual depth, mainly because Dolan isn’t really interested in them – he’s interested in the two characters escaping them.

Dolan casts the two leads well - Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas is excellent as Matthias, the man who knows he’s at the precipice of something, but not quite sure what – too mature for the frat boy crap, but perhaps not mature enough to really go after what he wants. And Dolan himself – cast in one of his own films for the first time since Tom at the Farm – gives probably his best performance on camera. Maxime is quieter, shier, more beaten down by life – but not so beaten down that he has given up. You get the sense that he would like to hide from the world outside – the bright red birthmark on his face making that impossible though.

I don’t think Mathias and Maxime is Dolan’s best film – it doesn’t hit the operatic highs of Mommy, or feel as raw and angry as I Killed My Mother. But it is the work of a filmmaker who has grown, matured – and perhaps learned something in his time. Perhaps it is the beginning of a new, exciting chapter in his career.

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.

Movie Review: It's Only the End of the World

It’s Only the End of the World
Directed by: Xavier Dolan    

Written by: Xavier Dolan based on the play by Jean-Luc Lagarce.

Starring: Nathalie Baye (La mere), Vincent Cassel (Antoine Knipper), Marion Cotillard (Catherine), Léa Seydoux (Suzanne Knipper), Gaspard Ulliel (Louis-Jean Knipper). 

When directors talk about adapting plays for film, they often talk about “opening” the play up. Many plays have a limited number of characters and only one locations – which makes sense given the constraints of the theater. There is no such constraint on film – so often plays add characters and locations, subplots, etc. when they move to film, in an effort to make things more cinematic – no director wants to accused of making a movie that is essentially a photographed play – and even if this opening up often has mixed results, it’s still pretty much the preferred method. Xavier Dolan does a little of this in It’s Only the End of the World – based on the play by Jean-Luc Lagarce. He has a flashback scene that would impossible on stage, and at one point, two of his characters go on a car ride instead of staying at the house nearly all the rest of the action takes place in (I assume, not having seen the play, that the scene was at the house on stage) – although in doing so, he’s just trading one confined space for another. For the most part though, Dolan traps his five actors in one location – and then goes a step further than that because he shoots almost the entire movie in close-up – whoever is talking has a camera directly in their face, unless the camera is directly in the face of the person they are talking to. Instead of opening up the play, he’s closed it down even more – made it more claustrophobic than ever before. Perhaps with another play, this approach could work – but here, it’s pretty much a disaster. There is a lot of screaming and big gestures in the film, and the effect of watching it in a theater is pretty much akin to having someone get into your personal space and screaming at you for 97 minutes.

The movie is about Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), a gay writer you is returning to his home for the first time in 12 years to tell his mother (Nathalie Baye), older brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel) and younger sister, Suzanne (Lea Seydoux) that he is dying. The only other character there is Antoine’s wife, Catherine (Marion Cotillard) – who Louis has never met, even though she and Antoine have been together for a decade, and have two kids themselves. The exact reasons for Louis’ self-isolation – and the whereabouts of their father – is left unanswered (although, I will admit, I spent more time trying to figure out how old the three siblings were supposed to be than that – Cassell is 49 in real life, and both Ulliel and Seydoux are 31 – although Ulliel says he’s 35 in the film, and Seydoux is supposed to be much younger, as he mentions he doesn’t know her at all as he left when she was a kid – and she admits she has no memory of him living with them – but I digress). Louis’ mother is excited for the visit – she’s slathering on makeup, and putting out a nice spread of all of Louis’ childhood favorites. Suzanne cannot wait to essentially meet her older brother – who she imagines lives some glamorous life, as opposed to her boring one in suburbia, where she basically sits around and gets stoned. Antoine is angry – angry at Louis, and at his life in general. Catherine tries to play the role of peacekeeper – keeping a smile plastered on her face throughout, and speaking quietly. Like many quiet people, you get the impression that not a lot gets by her – she understands more than she appears to.

 

The movie is essentially made up of a series of one-on-one conversations between Louis and the other members of the family – although there are two meals at both the beginning and end of the film where everyone is together. Yet even these one-on-one conversations are barely that – they’re much more like multiple scenes where the members of the family tell Louis everything about their life – and those of their family – and what they all need Louis to do for them. It couldn’t be stagier if it tried.

 

Perhaps on stage, all this works. Louis pretty much remains a cipher throughout the film – you never really get a handle on who he is, why he left, his place in the family, etc. It seems like he has become a bigger presence in the family in his absence then he was when he was there – especially for his mother and sister, who think he can solve everything. In many ways, Antoine is the character whose motivations are the clearest and easiest to understand – he’s pissed. He’s pissed that his brother left, he’s pissed that he got famous, pissed that he has to take care of everything himself, pissed he has a shitty job, etc. His anger makes sense. Yet, his scenes are also the worst in the film – as Cassell essentially decides to scream every word of dialogue he has – and seethe in quiet anger when he isn’t talking.

 

In fact, out of all the performances in the film, only Cotillard is really convincing. One of the best actresses in the world, she turns Catherine into a sympathetic character – her big eyes take everything in, and unlike everyone else, she doesn’t really have any delusions about Louis – she tries to be nice, make small talk, tell him about her kids, etc., early on – but a later scene, in the hallway, lets us know precisely what she really does think – and her quiet, not quite criticism, cuts closer to the bone than anything else. Ulliel is stuck with an impossible role – he looks sad eyed throughout, and never gets to say what he really think. Baye is all exaggerated emotions and gestures – it’s hard to take her seriously in her one scene when she does get serious – harder still to believe a woman of that age would have such a juvenile outlook on life. Seydoux is clearly too old to be playing what is essentially a spoiled. naive teenage brat – and the film gives her no other note to play.

 

Dolan is a talented filmmaker. He is no longer the teenage wunderkind who dazzled with I Killed My Mother back in 2009, even if I’m not quite sure his outlook on life has matured that much in the intervening years. Still, that film – along with Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways and Mommy all show him to be a talented filmmaker – and even if I didn’t particularly love Tom at the Farm, I liked how it showed a willingness to experiment and try a different genre. I still think Dolan is one of the most interesting cinematic voices to come out of Canada in years – and look forward to whatever he does next. But It’s Only the End of the World is pretty much awful from beginning to end – shrill, loud, angry, lacking in any real insight or emotion, it’s a trying experience to sit through. Every director has some misfires in their career – It’s Only the End of the World is one of those for Dolan.

Movie Review: Mommy

Mommy
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written by: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Anne Dorval (Diane 'Die' Després), Antoine-Olivier Pilon (Steve O'Connor Després), Suzanne Clément (Kyla), Patrick Huard (Paul), Alexandre Goyette (Patrick), Viviane Pascal (Marthe).

25 year old Quebecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan is constantly experimenting with his style, hoping genres with each film, and mixing in different elements, and inspirations, in each of his first five films. His first film, I Killed My Mother, was made when he was just 19 – and he wrote, directed and starred in it – and announced him as a major talent. His next three films, Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways and Tom at the Farm, haven’t quite lived up to his debut – but they were all interesting, and all showed a willingness to experiment. His fifth film, Mommy, returns to the themes addressed in his first film = and may well be his best work to date. The film is wildly ambitious, and if it has a tendency to repeat itself a little too often, and perhaps spends a little too much time showing off stylistically, it’s also Dolan’s deepest, most heartfelt film to date. In many ways, he is making a big screen soap opera – which may explain his choice of a strange 1:1 aspect ratio, most common in old TV, and once again Dolan wears his most obvious influence on his sleeve (in this case, early Pedro Almodovar). But Dolan earns his stylistic excesses, and his influences, by delivering a film that is full of life and emotional upheaval – one that constantly threatens to, but never quite, goes over the top.

The film stars Anne Dorval, who delivered a great performance in the title role of I Killed My Mother, and outdoes that here, as Diane – a lower class widow, with a troubled teenage son – Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon). As the movie opens, Steve is being thrown out of a group home because of another violent outburst – leaving Diane with only two options, take him home herself, or use a controversial new law to commit him (the film opens with a thoroughly unnecessary preamble about a new law coming into effect after the 2015 Canada Federal Election – don’t give Harper any ideas!). She elects to take him home – but it quickly becomes apparent the danger Steve represents. He can be sweet, kind funny one second, and then fly into a rage the next – strangling his mother, going on a hate fueled, racist rant on a cab driver, smashing a glass table, etc. Diane tries her best with Steve – but it’s hard. She’s lost her job, she’s lost her car, and she simply isn’t equipped to handle Steve – despite how much she obviously loves him. A little bit of hope is represented when they meet the neighbor across the street – Kyla (Suzanne Clement), a stuttering teacher on “sabbatical”, with her own family issues and traumas. But she bonds with Diane, and later Steve – and even takes up the task of homeschooling Steve – something Diane is clearly incapable of. And Steve seems to be doing better – but Steve being Steve, he’s constantly at risk at doing something that will screw everything up.

Dolan, who has always been guilty of stylistic excess (which is forgivable when it works – and it mainly works here) took the odd step of shooting the film in a narrow 1:1 aspect ratio – one that resembles old school TV, which is oddly appropriate since he’s basically making a soap opera here. But the 1:1 ratio does something else to the characters – it traps them in the frame, gives them nowhere to go, no space to move around in. There are two moments when Dolan expands the screen to a more traditional, wide ratio – and they are two moments when Steve and Diane feel happiness and freedom, which is a rare occurrence for them.

Mommy has its fair share of problems – at two hours and twenty minutes it’s a little long for a movie that doesn’t have much of a plot, and the film has tendency to repeat itself. There are a few too many musical montages littered throughout the movie, and a few too many meltdowns by Steve as well – Dolan doesn’t need to labor over either the good or bad of Steve, because it’s clear fairly early. As an actor Antoine-Olivier Pilon isn’t quite up to the level of Dorval or Clement – these are three big roles, but you never catch Dorval or Clement ACTING – something you do catch Pilon doing several times. Then again, that could be because the two female performances are so good, that it would be hard for any young actor to hold their own against them. Dorval in particular is brilliant as Diane – a woman who would be struggling with her life even if she didn’t have Steve to contend with. She’s smart, but not educated, and has to hustle to get anything out of life. She’s trying her best, but near the end of her rope. She does something late in the film that will be controversial to some audiences – it certainly is to Kyla – but her scenes after that make it clear precisely why she did it – and why she felt she had to. It is a great performance.

 
Whatever the flaws in Mommy are, the movies attributes more than make up for them. There is a brilliant sequence in which Diane imagines what Steve’s life would be like in a perfect world – a romantic, hazy delusion that allows Diane a few minutes of peace – before the whole thing comes crashing down around her. The movie is about both of those sides of Diane – the one who wants to believe that her son will be okay, and the one who knows he never will.

Movie Review: Tom at the Farm

Tom at the Farm
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written by: Xavier Dolan based on the play by Michel Marc Bouchard.
Starring: Xavier Dolan (Tom), Pierre-Yves Cardinal (Francis), Lise Roy (Agathe), Evelyne Brochu (Sara), Manuel Tadros (Barman).

There are not many 24 year old who can claim they have directed one film that has garnered praise from around the world – and Quebec native Xavier Dolan has already made three. His debut film, I Killed My Mother, made when he was a teenager announced a major new voice in Canadian cinema – and his follow-ups Heartbeats and Laurence Anyways  seemed to confirm that talent. He is still a raw talent – none of his films have been perfect. But Dolan has more than enough time to hone his craft. One day, I have little doubt he will make a truly great film.

Unfortunately, his fourth film Tom at the Farm is not that film. Dolan seems to be trying out a different genre each time out, and this time he has elected to make a thriller – something that aspires to be Hitchcockian. If nothing else, Tom at the Farm shows that Dolan could make a great thriller one day. The best aspect of the film is the way Dolan slowly, but surely, builds tension. But as the movie goes along, it becomes increasingly implausible – and the film never quite hits high gear. For the first hour or so of this 95 minute film, I was anxiously awaiting what was going to happen next – only to have the film end without it really doing anything.

Dolan stars in the film as Tom – a gay man from Montreal who travels out into the Quebec farm country to attend his boyfriend’s funeral. We learn next to nothing about his boyfriend – not even how he died (apparently, it was some sort of accident). Tom arrives at his boyfriend’s childhood home, and is immediately welcomed in by Agathe (Lise Roy), his boyfriend’s mother, who doesn’t know her son was gay – an illusion Tom does not break. Next, he meets Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), his boyfriend’s older brother he didn’t even know existed. Francis runs the family farm, and makes it clear to Tom that Agathe is never to know her son was gay. Francis has even gone so far as to invent a girlfriend for his late brother – a girlfriend Agathe is furious with for not attending the funeral. From his introduction – waking Tom up in the middle of the night with a chokehold – it’s clear that Francis is more than slightly unhinged. Tom wants out of there as soon as possible – but for some reason, he finds himself drawn back to the farm after the funeral. And soon, he cannot leave at all – pretty much being held hostage by Francis, who is alternately violent and abusive, and kind in a way that hints that perhaps he’s not as much unlike his brother than he wants to believe.

For the first hour, much of the film works. We sense that Dolan and his characters are withholding information from us that will set in motion the films climax, but this works because Dolan is gradually building the tension, and revealing more and more about Francis and Agathe – who at first seem to be one dimensional characters that gradually become more complex as the movie progresses. The film also benefits from a wonderful score by Gabriel Yared – inspired by Hitchcock favorite Bernard Hermann. In short, for an hour, I couldn’t wait to see where the film was leading me.

Which is what makes the final half hour of the film such a disappointment – a jumble of ideas that goes by too quickly to be believed. Tom essentially reveals a certain degree of Stockholm syndrome in one scene, and then just as quickly seems to snap out of it. The film also introduces another character – Sarah (Evelyne Brochu), who’s pretty much every action makes no logical sense at all. There is one neat scene in this section – involving a local bartender who reveals the secrets Francis refuses to – but then the movie devolves into a strange, slow motion chase scene climax that simply has no tension. Perhaps this is because Tom at the Farm is based on a play – but if the play ended the same way as the movie does, than Dolan should have realized what worked on a stage, wouldn’t work nearly as well on screen.

Tom at the Farm is not a bad film by any means – the first hour is in fact quite good. But because the first hour works so well, the last half hour seems even worse than it would have had the first part not been as strong. Dolan is still a talented filmmaker – certainly someone to watch, and one of the most interesting directors currently working in Canada. But Tom at the Farm is a disappointment.

 
Note: The film opens in Montreal tomorrow, and one supposes will open around Canada shortly – as far as I know however, it still doesn’t have a deal for America – yet his debut film, made 4 years ago, just got a release South of Border last year, so you never know. I saw this film at TIFF 2013, and my review is based on that screening.

Movie Review: Laurence Anyways

Laurence Anyways
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written by: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Melvil Poupaud (Laurence Alia), Suzanne Clément (Fred Belair), Nathalie Baye (Julienne Alia), Monia Chokri (Stéfanie Belair), Susan Almgren (Journaliste), Yves Jacques (Michel Lafortune), Sophie Faucher (Andrée Belair), Magalie Lépine Blondeau (Charlotte), Catherine Bégin (Mamy Rose), Emmanuel Schwartz (Baby Rose), Jacques Lavallée (Dada Rose), Perrette Souplex (Tatie Rose), Patricia Tulasne (Shookie Rose), David Savard (Albert), Monique Spaziani (Francine).

What makes Xavier Dolan the most exciting young Canadian director working right now is his complete and utter fearlessness. At the age of 24, he has already made four acclaimed films, and while they are all undeniably his films, they are also very different in many ways as well. His debut film, I Killed My Mother (2009) was shot mainly with a handheld camera, and evoked the Dardenne brothers and other neo-realists. His follow-up Heartbeats (2010) was a stylized romantic comedy with echoes of Woody Allen. Tom at the Farm (2013), which I saw at TIFF this year, was a Hitchcock like thriller. His third film, Laurence Anyways, is an ambitious, three hour, decade spanning story about a man who wants to become a woman, and his complicated relationship with the woman he is with when makes the decision. The film is, undeniably, a little too long – and tries to cram too much in to its runtime – but it is also undeniably his most audacious film to date – an attempt make something that perhaps Rainer Werner Fassbinder would have done.

The film stars Melvil Poupand as Laurence Alia – a high school teacher who has dreams of becoming a writer. When we first meet him, he is a man, who is dating Fred (Suzanne Clement) – a woman who works as a costume designer for TV and movies. They seem happy together – at least Fred thinks so – until one day, seemingly out of nowhere, Laurence announces he wants to become a woman. He still loves Fred – he isn’t “gay” in that he wants to be with other men, and he hopes that Fred will understand and support his decision. Amazingly, she does try for a while to do just that. But just as Laurence cannot deny his feelings that he wants to be a woman, Fred cannot deny her feelings that she wants to be with a man.

The film is well acted by its two leads – especially Clement, whose Fred is confused from beginning to end in the film. She loves Laurence – in many ways they are perfect for each other, but she just cannot stay with him. Her attempts to go “straight” – with a wealthy man, in a big house in the suburbs – don’t really work either because it’s too conventional, too dull, too boring for her (you can track her progression by looking at how her fiery, dyed red hair changes throughout the movie). I think some of what Fred does late in the film doesn’t make a whole lot of sense – only someone who does not have kids could write some of the things Dolan has her say about her son – but Clement delivers an excellent performance throughout. For his part, Poupaud does a very interesting job with Laurence as well – he doesn’t change his voice, and he doesn’t become a wholly different character through the course of the movie. He remains Laurence – now, that just means he is a woman. Some will complain that the movie doesn’t really show his transformation – there are no surgeries, no hormones taken through the course of the movie – but I don’t think that was what Dolan was attempting to show in the film. He wanted to show this complicated love story, which is what he does. I also found it refreshing that Dolan didn’t feel the need to make Laurence into some sort of saint or martyr – he remains a complicated character – one that isn’t all that likable at times, but one we always understand. It takes Laurence’s decision at face value.

The film, it must be said, far too long. There isn’t a whole lot of plot to the film truth be told – it just seems like Dolan was a little too in love with his characters, and didn’t want to leave them, so the films clocks in at nearly three hours – and you feel that length in the film’s second half, as Dolan delays the inevitable for far too long. Yet the film is also a technical marvel – hyper stylized, full of garish colors and shots that also somehow manages to never go too far over the top.

The film feels like another step forward for Dolan. I still don’t think he has made a truly great film yet (and Tom at the Farm actually feels like a step backwards) – and yet the one thing that remains clear to me after seeing each one of Dolan’s four films to date is that one day he will make a truly great film. He’s got a lot of time to get there – he’s way ahead of any other 24 year old working right now.

Movie Review: Heartbeats

Heartbeats *** ½
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written By: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Monia Chokri (Marie), Niels Schneider (Nicolas), Xavier Dolan (Francis), Anne Dorval (Désirée), Anne-Élisabeth Bossé (Young Girl).

Xavier Dolan made quite a splash with his debut film, I Killed My Mother, which he wrote, directed and starred in at the age of 19. The film was surprisingly raw and honest – and captured life as a confused teenager better than most other films of its sort I have seen – probably because it was actually made a confused teenager. Dolan showed a real flair behind the camera as well, shooting his movie in a style reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers. In short, I Killed My Mother marked him as one of the most exciting filmmakers to come out of Canada in years.

His follow-up film Heartbeats isn’t quite as raw or honest as I Killed My Mother was, yet it confirms Dolan as a wonderful cinematic stylist, as well as a great writer with an ear for dialogue, and a damn fine actor as well. While I Killed My Mother focused on the relationship between a gay teenager struggling to come out to his overbearing mother, Heartbeats is about a bi-sexual love triangle that never really existed.

Dolan stars as Francis, a gay man in his early 20s, who is best friends with Marie (Monia Chokri). They both see the blonde Adonis Nicolas (Niels Schneider) at the same time, and are immediately smitten. It is impossible to get a read on Nicolas, because he is so aloof, and seemingly likes both of them. They jockey for position around Nicolas, trying in vain to garner his affection, because Nicolas seems so oblivious to everything going on around him. It’s not like Francis and Marie don’t have any warning signs – Nicolas doesn’t make a move on either of them, and his own mother (Anne Dorval, playing the exact opposite kind of mother she played in I Killed My Mother – this one trying so desperately hard to remain young and hip, when she so clearly isn’t) describes Nicolas as an airhead. It is fascinating to see how this threesome evolves – from lust and infatuation to downright loathing.

If I Killed My Mother resembled a Dardenne brothers film in the way it was shot, than Heartbeats is very clearly inspired by the work of Jean Luc Godard in the 1960s. The bright color palette, the pretentious young people discussing poetry and modeling their looks on old school movie stars (Audrey Hepburn for Marie, James Dean for Francis) would all fit in an early Godard film. But Dolan’s film is more playful, more fun, more humorous than Godard ever was.

One of the things I admire about Dolan is that unlike many actor/writer/directors, he doesn’t give himself all the best lines and moments. Sure, Francis is clever and funny – well written and well played by Dolan – but it is Monia Chokri who is given the best moments in the film. An actress I wasn’t really familiar with before, she does a great job as the insecure Marie, trying so hard to be cool and get Nicolas to notice her. For his part, Niels Schneider keeps Nicolas at a distance – which is appropriate, because I don’t think either of the main characters ever really get to know him – they don’t even display much interest in doing so. They are too infatuated with him to care. I also quite liked the little “documentary” like clips Dolan throws into the film at various points, interviewing young people about loves lost (including the recent genie nominee Anne-Elisabeth Bosse, who breaks your heart).

I have a feeling that Dolan is only going to get better as his career moves along. Already, at 21, he has two very good movies under his belt, and shows that he has more style than many directors with a lot more experience. At times perhaps he has too much style. And yet, I think Dolan is going to direct even better films than I Killed My Mother and Heartbeats in the future. And I for one, cannot wait to see what they are.

Movie Review: I Killed My Mother

I Killed My Mother *** ½
Directed by: Xavier Dolan
Written By: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Anne Dorval (Chantale), Xavier Dolan (Hubert Minel), François Arnaud (Antonin), Suzanne Clément (Julie), Patricia Tulasne (Hélène), Niels Schneider (Éric), Monique Spaziani (Denise), Pierre Chagnon (Richard Minel).

Most movies about teenagers are made by people who forget what being a teenager was actually like. That is why we get movies like Adventureland (which is a fine film), that look back at those days with nostalgia and joy. But I Killed My Mother has none of that rose colored view of teenage years. This is probably because it was written and directed by Xavier Dolan, who was 19 when he made the film. He gets those years right – the rages, the arguments with parents and how they seem to be purposefully ruining your life. When you’re a teenager, you cannot see the big picture, but just what is immediately in front of you. And, if like in the movie, both you and your single mother who is raising you are undiagnosed manic-depressives, things are just worse than normal.

Dolan also stars in the movie, playing Hubert, a 16 year old kid from Montreal who is living at home with his mother Chantale (Anne Dorval). The two of them cannot seem to have a normal conversation without at least one of them flying into a rage – which of course, sets off the other one. The father, Richard (Pierre Chagnon) is pretty much out of the picture, although he still lives in town. When Hubert was 8, he decided that being a husband and father wasn’t really for him and just left. Now Chantale and Hubert just crash into each other every night. Every time Hubert complains about anything, Chantale asks him to “take a survey” at school among his friends to find out “how many other mothers would do this for their son”. The constant bickering between the two of them has driven both of them to the end of their ropes.

Hubert has other problems than just his mother. As I mentioned before, I think he is manic depressive, just like his mother and grandmother. They mention the grandmother who had to be institutionalized before her death and her problems, but neither one of them can face the fact that they as well could use help with their mental problems. Add this to the fact that Hubert is gay, and cannot tell his mother about it, and you have one confused teenager. When he is assigned a project at school to detail what one of his parents does for a living, he tells his teacher that he never sees his father (true) and that his mother is dead (not true). The teacher feels sorry for him, and takes him under her wing for a bit – but soon Chantale has been told by the school that Hubert told his teacher she was dead – which makes her barge into the school and throw a tantrum in the hallway.

I Killed My Mother is a very strong debut film for Dolan – as a writer, as a director and as an actor. There are people who have been doing this for decades and don’t have the skills to pull off all three of these jobs in one movie. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that he was able to write and play a teenager so well – after all, he still is one. But what amazed me was the portrait of Chantale, his mother. She is hardly a one dimensional monster, and this is not a French Canadian Mommie Dearest. Dolan sees her clearly, and even generates some sympathy for her. When a school administrator calls her and says that Hubert could benefit from a “more stable male influence in her life”, she flies off the handle, but we understand why, and feel sympathy for her. Dorval gives a remarkable performance as Chantale. Dolan’s cinematic eye is also well honed from a 19 year old. True, he does go a little overboard on the “artistic” shots at points, but mainly this is a remarkable visual film.

I Killed My Mother played at the Cannes film festival last year, was Canada’s official entry for the Academy Awards Foreign Language Film race (and should have at least been shortlisted), and will most likely dominate the Genie Awards later this spring. All this for a film by a 19 year old. Amazing.