Mommy

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Reviewed by: Richard Mowe

Antoine-Olivier Pilon in Mommy ... "Whatever else Dolan has achieved in his short but prodigious career, he has defined a style and body of work that is recognisably his own."
"The energy and sheer visual bravura carry it along."

Like him or loathe him (and opinion is evenly divided) the enfant terrible of Quebec cinema Xavier Dolan, 25, pursues a singular vision.

As the third Canadian entry in the Competition (after Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg) he returns to the mother and son themes of earlier film I Killed My Mother.

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Here the maternal force is Diane (played by Anne Dorval in a remarkably sustained performance). She has custody of her volatile son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon with the look of an angel one moment and the Devil the next). He has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder leading to severe behavioural difficulties and outbursts of violence.

Into their lives for the better comes Kyla (Suzanne Clément) who lives across the street and has a breakdown-induced stutter. How these lost souls come together and support each other forms the kernel of the film.

Dolan allows himself the idiosyncrasy of filming most of it in a square ratio before opening out to widescreen at certain moments of emotional release, a trick that proves irritating rather than dramatically satisfying.

It’s also self-indulgently overlong (a trait shared by several Competition films) but despite this, the energy and sheer visual bravura carry it along on a wave of emotionally truthful performances, with narrative twists of considerable ingenuity.

Whatever else Dolan has achieved in his short but prodigious career, he has defined a style and body of work that is recognisably his own.

Reviewed on: 22 May 2014
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Mommy packshot
A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor insinuates herself into their household.
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Director: Xavier Dolan

Writer: Xavier Dolan

Starring: Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément

Year: 2014

Runtime: 139 minutes

Country: France, Canada


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