2009

J’ai tué ma mère58
[ review ]

2010

Les amours imaginaires41
[ review ]

2012

Laurence Anyways50
[ review ]

2013

Tom à la ferme39
[ I’m a sucker for old-school film scores. Seriously, right when the ominous, Bernard Herrmannesque Gabriel Yared score kicked in, some 5 minutes into the film, it had me hooked, even though at that point, we know next to nothing about what brings Tom (Xavier Dolan with longish bleached blonde hair) to the Quebec countryside. That music immediately lets you know that something dark and twisted is about to happen. Tom, it turns out, is here to attend the funeral of his late lover, whose mother Agathe (Lise Roy) is unaware he was gay, an information the deceased’s brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) wants to remain unknown to her. And – here comes the dark and twisted part – Francis also instantly begins to intrude on Tom in disturbing ways, harrassing him while he’s in bed, while he’s in the bathroom, etc. But then the way things evolve (or devolve) seems off, with events happening by fits and starts, characters behaving erratically and the Hitchcockian thriller the score seems to promise never quite materializing. “Tom à la ferme” also suffers from uneven (at best) acting and from direction that fails to make us forget that it’s an adaptation of a stage play by Michel Marc Bouchard. I grew increasingly bored of the scenes between Tom and Francis, which often feel stiff and uninvolving no matter how much psychosexual violence they feature. Things pick up slightly when Evelyne Brochu shows up, but not enough to salvage things. Frankly, this is probably my least favorite Xavier Dolan movie. But that score, man… ]

2014

Mommy 67
[ review ]

2016

Juste la fin du monde8992
[ Reviewed on Extra Beurre ]