Hubert Minel, a brash 17 year old, dislikes his mother intensely. He gauges her with contempt, only seeing her out-of-date sweater, her kitschy décor and the vile bread crumbs that lodge in the corners of her noisy mouth. Below the surface of these irritating traits, lie the ingrained mechanisms that his mother has always cultivated so dearly - manipulation and guilt. Hubert, confused and torn by a love-hate relationship that obsesses him more and more each day, wanders in and out of an
adolescence that is both marginal an typical, combining artistic discovery, openness to friendship, ostracism, and sex. All the while, he is consumed by his all encompassing contempt for this woman he somehow once loved. -- (C) Regent
There's much to praise, especially the oh-so-real dialogue, but true psychological penetration is lacking and Dolan's hunger to prove his talent results in a superfluity of styles.
If the attention Dolan pays to his character's struggle with the paradox of loving his mother without actually liking her feels remarkably honest, his style of shooting feels anything but.
...the sensational filmmaking debut of twenty year-old writer/director/star Xavier Dolan...exhibits not only technical competence and a strong artistic signature, but the maturity to recognize the underlying causes of teenage arrogance.
This is hardly the reassuring, audience-friendly coming-of-age-and-out tale it could've been. It's very much a two-hander between opponents who are equally matched and often equally flawed.
Xavier Dolan has done at 19 what most of us will never accomplish: produce a legitimate work of art that communicates to us in innovative, challenging and affecting ways.
A stunning, semi-autobiographical tour de force from writer/director/producer/performer Xavier Dolan, it is a film with the sting of shrewdly observed truth.
French Canadian Xavier Dolan, only 20, makes a splashy and bold feature directing debut in this coming of age tale about a precocious gay adolescent who engages in endless arguments (both funny and horrific) with his crass single mother.
Xavier Dolan is a really talented, promissing young director. His filmmaking debut is a sensitive and involving approach to a semi-autobiographical subject, a story that balances subtle humor and compelling drama in a more than satisfying way.
Holy crap was this intense, checked it out in June on a short trip to Montreal. Very personal, very painful film, a little immature but an incredibly heavy depiction of a boy losing touch with his mother. Run time might have been only about an hour and a half, I honestly felt like I was in the theatre all day. This
film was lauded at Cannes and rightfully so, it's like a more intense Denys Arcand work and with any luck, young M. Dolan will join his forebear at the top of Quebecois and Canadian cinema in due time. A gripping film that everyone should see (once they get the subtitles on it and release it south of the 49th parallel, should be September '09).
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