Mommy

Perhaps Mommy, Canada's 2014 Oscar submission, is the ultimate therapy through filmmaking endeavor.  Clearly, 25-year-old Quebecois wunderkind Xavier Dolan is working out deeply wrought  personal issues with his latest feature, a beautifully alive, utterly heartbreaking and vibrantly original piece of work, returning to a theme that has dominated his films since the beginning-- the relationship between mothers and sons.  Dolan's first feature-- 2009's I Killed My Mother-- traversed similar terrain and unleashed a promising new discovery.  Mommy expressively shows the advances Dolan has made formally as a director and writer and further establishes a talent whose cinematic voice has been sharpened to an entirely and exciting new level.  For that and for so much more, Mommy feels like essential viewing.

Mommy grabs your attention from the very beginning.  The first thing one is likely to notice is how different it looks.  Dolan shot the film in a 1.1 aspect ratio-- a square (though it looks more rectangular on the big screen) forcing the audience to stare right dab in the center of the screen.  At first it's rather jarring, but the visual conceit puts you right in the center of the turbulent space of Diana (Anne Dorval) and her troubled son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), and their devastatingly lived-in dynamic.  In truth, with the emotional fireworks on display, and all the pain and wonder attached to them, Mommy can't at all be contained in a caged box-- they couldn't even if Dolan had shot the film in CinemaScope and the film were shown on the largest screens in the world.  Yet that closeness, that intense intimacy bonds the film in such an unusual and euphoric way that even if some of cinematogrpher André Turpin's compositions seem condensed or slighted, the emotional connection to the characters and the performers playing them within an inch of their lives register so deeply and so honestly, the experience is never distracting or unwelcome.