Mommy * *

I was left in two minds about this French Canadian film.  It’s like the director Xavier Dolan confidently believes that if you put enough intensity into each scene, the many intense parts will make a persuasive whole.  This self-confidence also extends to the formatting of the film - 90% of it is audaciously shot so the projection barely takes up half the screen.  (I should have asked for half my money back).   I suspect the idea is to make the audience feel like voyeurs peep holing into the drama: apparently the format is 1:1 (square) but it feels like portrait mode.

The film commences by informing us, in text, of recent legislation in Canada that will allow a parent to bypass all legal proceeding and have their child put in a hospital if they believe the child will commit an act of violence upon them.  The story does not seem to condone or condemn this legislation, so telling us about it seemed more of an explanation of some scenes rather than the crux of the film. Die is a working class, middle aged, recently widowed woman who has an out of control teenage boy, Steve.  His conduct is explained as ADD but it is so extreme there is clearly something else amiss and the recent death of his beloved father doesn’t quite explain it.  The occasional very odd sexual advances upon his mother complicates the scenario further.  A declared Oedipus complex might be attention grabbing but it doesn’t do much else.

Then there is the lady from the across the road who seems quite alienated from her own young daughter but takes a caring interest in Steve even after he physically and sexually assaults her.  She has her own problems - she is a teacher on sabbatical because sometimes her voice just freezes like someone in shock.  Each is believable in acting, convincing us with their intensity, but on reflection the circumstances and situations are interesting exaggerations rather than a credible story.  I felt we had three actors who work-shopped the hell out of each scene until it was boiling then moved on to the next one.  Just as we had a bolted on beginning to enlighten us, the final conversation between the two women seemed tagged on to present us viewers with a spoken resolution, with the mother mumbling something about hope.  (Oh, okay is that what you were trying to say?
But as I said, it did leave me in two minds. My other thought is admiration that this 140 minute film  is the work of a writer-director still in his twenties (nearly all prodigies are precocious I suppose): it’s gutsy and ambitious.  Some say it reminds them of the recent film Fishtank and I can see that.  Perhaps I am showing my age, but it reminded me more of  the 70’s film Family Life about a misunderstood teenage girl, which impressed me then but on second viewing made me ask “What was I thinking?” A question which the Jury on the 2014 Cannes Film Festival Panel might ask themselves for giving Mommy the Jury prize.  (Or maybe it’s a question I’ll have to ask myself - again).