Mommy
Tags: violence, storytelling

Plot synopsis:
In a fictional outcome for the Canadian federal election, 2015, a political party comes to power and establishes a law called S-14, allowing parents of troubled children and limited finances to place their children in hospitals, without regard for fundamental justice. After the law is passed, Diane "Die" Després, a widowed mother and 46-year-old journalist, picks up her son Steve, who has ADHD with violent tendencies, from an institution. Steve has started a fire at the institution, in which another youth was injured. Die brings Steve home, and struggles to care for him under financial distress. He gives her jewelry reading "Mommy", which she suspects he has stolen. Enraged by the accusation, Steve begins choking her, and she defends herself by hitting him with a glass frame. Kyla, a neighbour and teacher on sabbatical, shows up to tend to their wounds.
Kyla, who is dealing with a stuttering problem, begins to tutor Steve, and Steve indicates he is glad to know her and respects her wishes not to call her "babe". Although the three have bonded, Die is served papers indicating she and Steve are being sued for the injuries caused by his fire.
Die finds a lawyer willing to help them, but Steve drives him away due to what he perceives as the lawyer's sexual interest in Die. While at a store, Steve stabs himself, but survives. Overwhelmed, Die attempts to commit Steve to a hospital. She regrets the decision when she sees the officials use violence and tasers to subdue Steve, but there is nothing she can legally do. Kyla moves to Toronto, with Die encouraging her and expressing hope for her son. Immediately after being unstrapped by hospital officials, Steve flees.

Review: Not only does he manage to impress with top-notch directorial skills and an impressive and complex understanding of human relationships, but he has successfully accomplished the ultimate goal of a filmmaker: transmitting emotions -- pure, unaltered feelings.I was never a supporter of the idea of re-watching films; I thought that by re-watching a movie, you would lose precious time that could have been used to watch a potentially even better film.
It can be easily said that Xavier Dolan is one the foremost directors of our time and he proved this by making this gorgeous film.
and the mother made us feel the reality of the low class Canadian family.Of course the other leading actress succesfully accompanied them.The way of Xavier Dolan's using musics was great.
There is a lot of humour in the film (in its observation of characters and what they say and do, but the time that got me most of all was when two characters laugh so hysterically you can't help but laughing out loud too – there's a real danger of us all descending into uncontrollable laughter alongside the ladies on screen!) which made me glad to watch it in a full cinema where the reaction could be heard from the audience.
They all feel like real people and despite the 2.5 hour running time, somehow at the end of the film you feel they've been snatched away from you.
All actors can convey so much in an expression or action that you feel a world of their emotion and understand things about them without them needing to be said.The three main characters in the film all become tied to each other in a way where they're kind of enmeshed.
I guess I should talk about the fact that the film is shot in a square of screen and to be honest I barely noticed it until a truly glorious moment when the screen opens up as a character exclaims their freedom and we see our three leads feeling free fleetingly.
The only time the screen expands again attests to this for it is a character's dream of the future.Mommy is pitched in an ordinary world, but at extremes of emotion, but at the core there is always honesty in what it says and it's this that for me makes Dolan a great filmmaker.
Dolan gets people and when you understand people enough to not just make a film in which you care about the characters, but to make a film where no matter the character, their experiences resonate: then, you have something magic."What does anyone want but to feel a little more free." I quoted at the start.
The ending was a bit too obvious and not very original, but I'll take itNot as enamored with it as most, but I still found it to be a truly incredible experience that is no doubt so inherently interesting and entertaining, much like the only other Dolan film I've seen Tom at the Farm..
Frequent headliner for Dolan's previous films and having starred in 4 of the 5, Mommy stars Anne Dorval as the titular character Diane 'Die' Despres, in a whirlwind performance of tantalizing vigor and sensitivity.
She's a widowed single mother who takes her thuggish son Steve, played by Antoine-Olivier Pilon, back home after his time runs out at a delinquent center due to an incident where he caused another boy to be seriously burned.
Die's dream sequence towards the end of the film showing Patrick's life successful and happy was truly surreal and well placed - a mother's dream for his son.
The camera, directed by Xavier Dolan, manages to make the viewer breathe an aura of beauty and gleam in most of the scenes, insofar as the movie as a whole can actually be classified as one of those rare masterpieces in which you may - and often you do - easily get lost.
In its own way, with its own unique history, as exclusive and remote location as the one Sandra Bullock found herself in when her shuttle was damaged.Everything about the film deserves attention, even the bizarre use of an exceptionally tight Aspect Ratio -- other reviewers have heaped praise on this bizarre affectation, but the TRUTH is that audiences around the globe will be on the phone with Tech Support 3 minutes after the credits roll, trying to figure out what just happened to their $5k home theatre system...?
It is a masterpiece in every sense of the word and is just all around great filmmaking and sometimes as the writer, I feel it is sometimes hard to explain to my readers, just how good a film like Mommy is, so I will do my best here.
Films that you can identify with the characters on the screen so well and you see them going through various ordeals and trials and sometimes the acting and filmmaking depicting this is done in such a realistic and accurate way that it leaves you for the time being, feeling exhausted, drained and almost maddened.
Watching the new film Mommy, by genius young director Xavier Dolan reminds me of everything I have just written above.
The emotions conveyed through the actors, direction and writing in this film is never done in a sappy, or melodramatic way, we feel for these people because we can relate to them and their situations and because we care for them.
As you probably already have heard, Xavier Dolan's Mommy is not a laid-back inquiry into the joys of motherhood, but a shout-em-down contest of wills between Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), an out-of-control teenager suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and his mother Diane Després (Anne Dorval), whose parental skills are severely challenged.
Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Mommy is shot in a 1:1 aspect ratio which is like living inside of a cardboard box with no windows.
This choice may seem appropriate to the director, but, for the viewer, it feels like always being short of breath.Supported by a potpourri of 90s biggest hits, Mommy takes place in 2015 in a fictional Canada where a new law has been passed allowing parents to put their children in an institution without the need for any messy legal proceedings.
"We still love each other, right?"Mommy is Xavier Dolan's fifth feature film (but the first time I was exposed to his work) and it deserves all the recognition it received from Cannes, including its Jury Prize win, because it's a unique and powerful movie with all around outstanding performances from the cast.
The film centers on a widowed mother, Diane (Anne Dorval), who is trying to make ends meet as she tries to raise her troubled teenager, Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon).
Kyla perhaps would be the likable character here, but Dolan manages to direct this film with such grace and elegance that all three characters end up being people we care about and sympathize with despite their flaws.
At first I was thinking there was no way I would end up caring for this kid and her mother, but after carefully setting the stage Dolan manages to give each one of these characters depth.
Mommy makes me want to go and watch Dolan's previous four films now because this was one of the best dramas of 2014.The film was shot on a 1:1 aspect ratio which gives the movie a sense of claustrophobia and enables us to focus on the characters faces and emotions.
One of the movies main characters Diane Després finds herself in exactly that situation when her son Steve who has ADHD gets out of a youth detention center.
Right from the start this unique family seems to be heading into a disaster but things change when a mysterious neighbour inserts herself into the lives of Diana and Steve.The concept of a mother struggling with a troublesome child is not all that unique, and even though this movie has quite a few interesting story elements up its sleeve, at its core it still is a film about a dysfunctional family that has been told many times before.
When things are looking up for Steve and Diane the frame widens and when the characters finally get their breath of fresh air the viewer experiences the same as they are finally able to escape from that little box they were trapped in.
Well I got something to learn next time.The story is about a single mom's drama about raising her son, who's behavior deteriorates into violence, due to a mild mental illness.I first took interest in the film Mommy just because of the hype and the positive praise it got from the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and the amount of awards it won from the Jutra Awards and Canadian Screen Awards for best Foreign Language film, but not a Academy Award for Foreign Film at the Oscars.
Since I am watching more Foreign Language films and searching the ones that got high ratings or just the ones that may interest me, because I'm taking a break from some movies today as they normally not very good or just too Hollywood for me, I mean movies today are getting pretty stale and cliché as nothing feels originally anymore.
These something about Foreign Language films that always feel real and sometimes so tight with it's story and ending that most movie studios will shy away from and I love it.
So I checked out the 2014 Award Wining Mommy and it was absolutely brilliant, I mean how could I even dear overlook this I mean this is a great movie right here and true film making at it's best.Not only did the Oscar screw up for not awarding this for Best Foreign Language film, they also didn't nominate Anne Dorval for Best Actress, because she did one of the best, the most heart felt and the most real piece of performance I've seen in 2014.
There was many scenes in the movie were the son and her have this argument over each over and it never felt like I was just watching actors reading out the script and pretending that they related, no they back and forward arguments always felt real and I bough it.
At the Cannes Film Festival Julianne Moore won for Best Actress for Maps to the Stars and I haven't seen Maps to the Stars yet so I can't really judge on her performance in that movie since I haven't seen it, but Anne Dorval was nominated in that category so it was disappointing that she didn't take the award, but I have seen Still Alice and she won a Oscar for that role, but Anne Dorval should have took that Oscar home as she did a much better than Moore as I connected to Anne Dorval more and how her performance made me feel different emotions that I never felt before while watching the movie.Antoine-Olivier Pilon is a unknown star to me as I haven't seen him in any other movies before so this is basically the first ever performance I get to see him in and man god can this kid act, I mean he was so good in the movie.
He's performance showed both angry, goofy, troubled and damaged but all that is in he's performance and it never feels force and that was so well done that movie didn't slip into that cliché that happens in most movies and that's due to Antoine-Olivier Pilon excellent performance.The director of the movie Xavier Dolan which I haven't really seen any of his last work so this is my first movie directed by him and a great start.
Xavier Dolan did both a excellent job on directing the movie and making this as down to earth as possible showing characters and they problems that most people can relate to.
Awesome work Xavier Dolan.For problems with the movie I haven't really got any to be honest, but I'm not going to give this the perfect rating as I think this isn't on the level of 5/5 rating it can ever get it, but the rating I'm giving it is really outstanding and it's the highest rating I give this week.Overall I say that Mommy is worth checking it if you haven't seen it yet.
So, this movie makes you wonder if you are enough thankful for having a caring and loving mother.I liked that this drama shows in fact an extreme situation in family and it is more than interesting watching oscillations in relationship between Steve and Diane.
Xavier Dolan, both by his extremely powerful and impressive direction and by his ability to write such a realistic,simple but effective story achieves something that few movies have done:he makes s a part of the film and immerses us in an unforgettable experience.
The film,for its most part, is shot in a 1:1 screen ratio.In this way, it instantly provokes a strong sense of claustrophobia and seems like it has the role of a small camera that moves around the characters' problems and desires.This technique makes the film more realistic and sad.
The movie has a beautiful soundtrack, from "Born to Die" to "Wonderwall".The songs add so much emotion to the scenes and the lyrics really fit to the movie's theme.Mommy is, surprisingly, one of the most well-acted movies of all time.The there actors are masters of their craft give powerful performances.During the movie couldn't distinguish the actor from the character.Moreover, their characters are perfectly developed and totally realistic.The film talks about our desires for a happy life and shows that an ideal life may never be achieved.We have to struggle and try unconditionally.Although it is a depressing film, it manages to deal with themes like love and care in a wonderful way.It is a haunting and magical film.The movie had an incredible impact on me and I can't wait to see it again, despite the fact that I will burst into tears after seeing it..
The one time the screen widens for a moment is during the Wonderwall scene, where Steve feels free for one a slight moment, then it comes back to the mundane life problems.After the gradual introduction, I was really starting to feel a bit driven up the wall with this small ratio, like a small crack in a wall through which I am trying to make a complete picture of the characters.
An extraordinary scene, music depicted both situation and their emotions so vividly: Steve's dance, feeling emotionally free for a moment.
'Mommy' is the fifth film from 26 year old writer/director Xavier Dolan.
Dolan has written people that you can not only relate to but feel for as if you stood right beside them in the best, and worst times.Each hard decision they make will send one into a panic as it does the characters.
Even for the shortest second used to look away can easily cost you a heart wrenching scene or beautiful moment between mother and son.But all this wouldn't have been possible without this films performances.
Xavier Dolan, Canadian infant terrible's fifth feature, MOMMY is gratifyingly his maturest work to date, won the Jury Prize in Cannes last year, and gutsily challenges our traditional cinema habit by altering the frame to an idiosyncratic 1:1 aspect ratio - bar two exceptions of 16:9 ratio sequences involving a soul-liberating celebration of life and a fanciful imagination of a mother indulging in her proudest moments of his son, which is quite a bravura to pull off, centralises its characters and dramatises their interactions and emotions.Retracing to the central theme of his smash debut I KILLED MY MOTHER (2009, 7/10) at the age of 19, but sans the queer label, MOMMY is concentrated on Diane (Dorval), a middle-aged widow and his teenage son Steve (Pilon), who is diagnosed with ADHD and afflicted with a proclivity of violence and self-abuse, apart from other misconduct in the present Canada.
This is an extreme high-octane energy film from the two main characters – mother (played by Anne Dorval) and her son (played by Antoine- Olivier Pilon).
Set in a suburb of Montreal, Dolan's "dramedy" is the tale of Diane "Die" Després (Anne Dorval) and her extremely hyperactive son, Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), who suffers from ADHD.
The fact that the film was shot in a 1:1 aspect ratio is also annoying, as the truncated square that appears on only part of the screen, makes us feel as if we're watching an old video from the 80s and early 90s.
It mainly has 3 characters Diane (Anne Dorval), Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) & Kyla (Suzanne Clément).
That bread-winning ability is affected when she makes the decision to get Steve back.I really admire the work of Xavier Dolan and looking forward to watch his other films too.
Xavier Dolan's "Mommy" is more than a movie, it is an experience of being choked up in a jar and forced to rub shoulder to shoulder with an estranged pair of mother and son.
For Diane Désprés (Anne Dorval), mother of 15-year-old Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), it this completely ruled out as a option.
I really don't even know how to describe that feeling but every time I listen to a song from the soundtrack or even think of the movie I just want to cry and cry and re watch it all over again also I can't wait for the bluray and wow Xavier...
The performances themselves are breathtaking especially from Antoine-Olivier Pilon (Steve) for someone of his age to completely and psychologically delve into his character the way he did shows tremendous talent, definitely one to look for in the future.The cinematography and the score were also incredible.
I feel like I'm not talking enough about Steve's mother, Diane (Anne Dorval).
Director Xavier Dolan seems to be somewhat quoting his earlier film I Killed My Mother, and he makes great use of music and locations.