Mommy

There’s so much that is brilliant and unexpected and often downright thrilling about Mommy, the fifth feature (a fact amazing in itself) from 25-year-old Quebec enfant terrible Xavier Dolan.

The movie is a furious, in-your-face whirlwind of emotions, but it’s never tiresome or bellicose, and its raucous, messy energy is invigorating.

Mommy is a film as harrowing as it is exhilarating, a story sometimes hard to watch but impossible to turn away from.

It feels like living inside a pressure cooker with one particular family — experiencing their turbulence as if from the inside, while always a little glad to be watching from a safe distance.

In its garishness, Mommy is a weirdly compelling overreach for this young filmmaker. It's the work of someone clearly passionate, if not disciplined yet, about his cinematic interests.

When Xavier Dolan's tremendous empathy for the abandoned, medicated, and economically stressed is given full visual flight, it's easy to get lost in the rush.

Willfully over determined and perversely stylized.

Young Xavier Dolan's stylized masterpiece is a work of heartbreaking humanism and one of the best films of the decade. I'm not sure whats more surprising, that Dolan is only 25 years old, or that this is already his 5th feature film.

Nothing annoys me more than walking out of a movie annoyed at the director and screenwriter and here I am, three hours later, still annoyed at the director and screenwriter of “Mommy”, both being Xavier Dolan who also edited it. The basic story is interesting in that it deals with a mother whose son has been kicked out of a juvenile facility after causing a fire burning 75% of another boy’s skin. The mother, Diane, nicknames Die and played by Anne Dorval, has been a widow for 3 years and the son, Steve, played by Antoine Olivier Pilon, hasn’t accepted his father’s death and had been previously diagnosed with ADD and/or possibly also being bi-polar. They are both capable of moods swinging form high highs to low lows. One moment he can be choking her and the next moment kissing her on the lips while she can be as tender with him as any mother can be and in the next moment bashing him over the head with a framed picture. Both the mother and son lean on their neighbor across the street who lives there with her boyfriend? Husband? And their young daughter. She, Kyla, played by Suzanne Clement, had been a high school teacher but due to something--a nervous breakdown?--has stopped teaching and she can barely talk in full sentences and stutters horribly except around the mother and son. Both mother and son are foul mouth speakers along with being flirtatious whenever the opportunity arises or, sometimes, instigating sexual innuendos. The language, in some instances, is definitely R rated. It is a good straight told story of a subject that isn’t often a theme for movies, mainly in the first half but then the director/screenwriter/editor enters the picture. I want to excuse him because he is 25 years old but this is his fifth picture so he should know better. The film is mostly in a 1 to 1 ratio so most of the time you feel as if you are looking at it on a large cell phone. The screen is widen a few times but only effective and noticeable the first time. There are one too many blurry collages not too mention choppy editing that I guess is suppose to be ’artistic’. Also the screenwriter leaves way too many questions unanswered that are an important part of the story. Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clement and Antoine Olivier Pilon give excellent performances, especially the latter who has to handle showing all sides of a teenager with mental illness that changes him constantly. Aside from running far too long--two hours and 20 minutes--I felt frustration at how Dolan was taking a good story line and getting excessive with the camera. I found myself going from being interested to being bored and back and forth all during the movie and, finally, leaving annoyed.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Une milf limite cougar, névropathe sur les bords, reprend son avorton à la maison, avorton qu'elle aurait dû avorter il y a bien longtemps étant donné les troubles du comportement de l'énergumène (un rain man en devenir sans doute). S'ensuit une véritable bataille rangée entre les deux, bataille rejointe éventuellement par la voisine d'en face, presque aussi atteinte que les deux autres. J'avoue qu'on ne tient pas bien longtemps devant ces presque deux heures vingt de salmigondis foutraque, ce dégueulis à peine cinématographique à mi-chemin entre le documentaire fortement faisandé et le "Confessions intimes". Le film est en 4/3, même beaucoup moins qu'un 4/3 (presque un quatre quarts peut-être) et entièrement en québécois : cela ressemble si peu au français métropolitain qu'on a jugé bon (quelque part à la production ou en haut lieu, que sais-je...) d'activer la traduction simultanée au moyen de sous-titres. Mais ces misères techniques ne sont en définitive que broutilles (éminemment désagréables certes) en comparaison de la vacuité et de la bêtise incommensurables du propos de ce pseudo-film, pour autant qu'il y eût quelque chose à même de passer pour un "propos" ou un vague contenu dans cette ignominie prétentieuse.