LFF Review: Mommy

What makes Xavier Dolan a great director (as far as this first-time viewer can tell at least) is that he really doesn't give a shit. Shoot a film in a 1:1 aspect ratio? Eh, why not. Fill a soundtrack with the songs of yesteryear such as Oasis, Dido and Eiffel 65? Easy done. (Saying this, the film's montage set to Wonderwall really is one of the highlights of the year) Give the audience an extended wish-fulfillment sequence just to sage our worries about the film's protagonists, only to cut back to their bitter reality? Why the hell not. Canada's latest wunderkind (and official Cannes winner as of this year, thank you very much) Dolan takes our expectation of a simple story of a mother and son trying to survive and turns them into something that could easily become cringe inducing melodrama. Luckily, he seems to know exactly what he's doing.

The film opens with a dystopian message: the year is 2015 in a fictional Canada, and a new law has been introduced that allows parents to place their children in hospital straight away if they become an emotional or financial toll. This message is one of the few wrong turns that Dolan takes with the film, introducing Chekov's gun - or Chekov's law if you will - to hang over the whole of the film. We're then swiftly introduced to Anne Dorval's Die, a strong-willed, gloriously trashily dressed single mother who's been summoned to collect her son Steve from a detention centre. Die and Steve attempt to forge a new life together, but with Steve's ADHD and attachment issues plus money problems heavy on both mother and child's minds, it's not exactly easy.

Parent and child struggling against all odds is hardly new territory, (Although when was the last time we saw a really interesting mother and son dynamic in film? I'm struggling to think) hence Dolan's unorthodox tricks, which raise the story from dull melodrama to incredible filmmaking. What's important to note about Mommy is how much of it is actually cringe-inducing. The soundtrack is particularly ridiculous and nauseating, and there is a moment in which Steve skateboards towards the camera, gestures with his hands, and the screen widens from the 1:1 ratio to widescreen that could plausibly have been plucked straight from a Zac Braff film. Yet somehow Dolan is in the know about just how ridiculous to make it, using just the right amount of cringe, somewhat similarly to Pedro Almodovar's use of lush, camp cinematography.

Dolan also has another important tool in his pocket - the performances. Dorval, star of Dolan's debut I Killed My Mother is an absolute tour-de-force, eliciting the same charisma in a simple close-up of her face as she does in a furiously delivered monologue. As Steve, Antoine Olivier Pilon may not have the same level of maturity that Dorval does, but he more than makes up for this with his highly expressive face. The two together are an absolute dream team, playing the ups and downs of the duo with ease. Suzanne Clement also shines as Kyla, a shy neighbour who Die and Steve seemingly rescue from her dull suburban life and drag into their crazed world. In all honesty, there's barely a bad performance in the piece.

Of course every film as anticipated and lauded as Mommy has to have a few problems. An early scene in which Steve demonstrates his anger issues by firing an incredibly racist tirade of abuse at a black taxi driver goes to unnecessary extremes seemingly just to illustrate Steve's extensive vocabulary of swear words and quick temper. And, as previously mentioned, the law introduced at the film's opening seems a little too dystopian for a (fairly) straight drama. But overall, Mommy is an unabashed success, (as illustrated by Dolan's Cannes win back in May) yet another step in Dolan's apparent domination of cinema before he even turns 30.

Grace Barber-Plentie

4/5