This year’s Cannes Film Festival unloaded its share of
turkeys, from “Grace of Monaco” to Atom Egoyan’s “The Captive,” David Cronenberg’s “Maps to the Stars” and the Ryan Gosling directorial debut “Lost River.”
But at least the festival ended on a dazzling high note. On Thursday night, Cannes premiered “Mommy,” directed by
25-year-old Quebecois director (and former child actor) Xavier Dolan, a drama about a mother and son that has quickly become the talk of the Croisette.
At a Thursday afternoon showing, the crowd spontaneously erupted in applause during one of the film’s sequences, and exploded into actual chants of “bravo!” at its closing credits. The critics are just as enthusiastic, mentioning Dolan in the same breath as Godard or Almodovar. The word on the street is that “Mommy” is the frontrunner to land the coveted Palme d’Or.
Dolan takes what could have been a conventional family saga and infuses it with a stunning command for story telling and cinematography (the film is shot in 1:1 aspect ratio). He draws tour de force performances from his actors, especially the film’s lead Anne Dorval. Her title character springs her 15-year-old son (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) from an institution for problem children and tries to homeschool him, with the help of a neighbor (Suzanne Clement).
Read more here:
https://variety.com/2014/film/news/c...al-1201190001/
Love the hair too.Amazing actor.
