Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Alex Gravel, Anik Vermette, Claude Gagnon, Danielle Proulx, Denis Trudel, Élizabeth Adam, Francis Ducharme, Hélène Grégoire, Isabelle Pagé, Jean-Alexandre Létourneau, Jean-Louis Roux, Jean-Marc Vallée, Joël LeMay, Marc-André Grondin, Marie-Michelle Duchesne, Marie-Yong Godbout-Turgeon, Mariloup Wolfe, Maxime Le Flaguais, Maxime Tremblay, Michel Côté, Michel Laperrière, Mohamed Majd, Natasha Thompson, Pierre-Luc Brillant
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Xavier Dolan’s emotionally charged directorial debut centers on the complex relationship between 16-year-old Hubert and his mother, brought to life by Dolan himself and Anne Dorval, respectively. The film paints an authentic and all-too-familiar picture of two people who love each other yet clash in similarly self-centered and stubborn ways.
The mother-and-son duo vacillate between love and hate in a screenplay full of drama. The cinematography, relying much on negative space, perfectly evokes a sense of disconnect and animosity. However, there is little subtlety to be found here, much like Hubert’s sexuality being embodied by a poster of River Phoenix displayed in his bedroom. The rawness and heightened telling of events indicate that this story is as fresh and unpolished as then 19-year-old Dolan’s own feelings about family dysfunction, particularly mommy issues. The heavy-handedness and moments of exaggeration in his quasi-autobiography are obvious, a fault of execution that one can attribute to lack of experience.
Still, the powerful visuals and dialogue hint at a vision of what more to expect in Dolan’s now-celebrated career. I Killed My Mother, by all accounts, fulfills its role as his promising directorial debut.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Anne Dorval, Benoît Gouin, Émile Mailhiot, Francis Ducharme, François Arnaud, Hugolin Chevrette, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Laurent-Christophe De Ruelle, Manuel Tadros, Marianne Verville, Monique Spaziani, Niels Schneider, Patricia Tulasne, Pierre Chagnon, Suzanne Clément, Xavier Dolan
Director: Xavier Dolan