Review: Missed Madison
Mommy | Xavier Dolan | Canada | 2014 | 140 min
Amazon Instant | GoWatchIt | Four Star | Madison Public Library
Xavier Dolan’s fifth film shows that he is a talented young filmmaker. The Jury Prize Winner at Cannes Film Festival (2014), Mommy is a startling look at a troubled mother/son relationship. Emotionally engaging, tense, and poignant, this film will have you wondering where Dolan will take us next.
Films about mother/son relationships can be quite endearing. However, Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan definitely offers a gut-wrenching view of what lengths a mother will go through in order to keep her family intact in Mommy. Shot in 1:1 aspect ratio, Mommy is a claustrophobic melodrama that takes place in Quebec. While the characters speak Quebecois, this is decidedly not a very French film as the plot moves faster and the characters have little time for meditating on the ills of existence.
Anne Dorval gives a breakout performance as Diane, a feisty middle-age mother of a teenage son, Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) who has been released from an institution after setting fire to its café and seriously burning another juvenile. There is a new law that states that a parent can commit a child to a state-run facility if the child is completely out of control. Diane is given the option of homeschooling Steve or allowing him to be sent to a more stringent facility. Recently widowed, Diane lives in an economically depressed situation, so it will be a challenge to homeschool Steve while she tries to work. Her hard exterior and sharp tongue foreshadow what we can expect from Steve. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and impulse control issues. The slightest annoyance can set him off into a violent rage and Dolan does not hold back when Steve delves into his emotional outbursts.
As soon as Diane brings Steve home, you clearly see how loose the boundaries are in their relationship, uncomfortably so. Steve has behavioral issues, to be sure, but Diane provides no real structure for him as she clearly has little to none herself. The Oedipal Complex does not go unaddressed here as Steve flirts with his mom and becomes jealous when he is introduced to a male neighbor, Paul (Patrick Huard) who appears to be interested in Diane. Pilon does a very good job capturing the kind of energy a troubled, previously institutionalized teen with ADHD would have as he blasts his stereo and bounds about the house.
Steve is eager to adjust to his new life at home and help his mother with her finances. In one intense scene, Steve has returned to the house after a shopping excursion and brings Diane a gift. She believes he must have stolen the items and accuses him of such. Tension mounts as Steve begins one of his meltdowns, leading to a violent physical confrontation. Enter Kyla (Suzanne Clément), Diane’s neighbor who lives across the street. Kyla has a stutter and difficulty communicating. Steve takes an instant liking to her as she seems to have a calming effect on him.
Kyla is a teacher who is currently on sabbatical. Dolan slyly refrains from delving into Kyla’s backstory and allows the viewers to piece it together on their own. She begins a friendship with Diane and helps home school Steve. As Kyla becomes closer and closer to Steve and Diane, we can see that she is inable to connect with her own family. Given that Diane is a teacher, you would think that she would help her daughter with her homework. Whenever her daughter needs help, her father is the one to offer assistance. Diane’s stutter even seems to get worse when she is at home with her own family.
Steve’s emotional outbursts and Diane’s lack of parenting skills and responsibility initially do not inspire much sympathy. Diane seemingly does not care about the predicament in which she finds herself. Dorval does a great job portraying someone who has the weight of the world on her shoulders. It eventually becomes clear that Diane’s heart is in the right place, but whenever she takes one step forward, Steve takes ten steps back. Toward the end of the film, I found myself rooting for them.
Dolan examines the Oedipal dynamic between the two without going to extremes. Watching their inappropriate behavior may be uncomfortable, but you understand why it was included in the script. Diane tells Kyla that Steve appeared to function normally as a small child but his behavioral issues intensified after his father’s death. This would mean Steve is now the man of the house and subsequently takes on the role as his mother’s protector. After Diane receives devastating news from her job, Steve reassures her in a way that a partner would more so than a son. The sexual tension pings back and forth between them to a degree where you wonder how far these boundaries have really been crossed? For better or worse, Steve has been the one thing that is her’s that loves her back no matter what. As Diane states, there is never a dull moment with Steve.
Dolan includes some unnecessary music montages, which I felt drew the story out longer than it needed to be. This may be because I did not quite care for the soundtrack. However, there is one heartbreaking dream-like sequence in the third act that is predictable yet moving. Stylistically, I see what Dolan was reaching for here, but I would have left out the montages and kept the last sequence.
Dolan is 25 years old and throughout his oeuvre, has examined dysfunctional family relationships. This is a great effort, and hopefully he will continue along this path. In Lynn Ramsay’s similarly-themed We Need to Talk About Kevin, we see a woman who is repulsed by the idea of motherhood and wants to move away from the problem. In Dolan’s Mommy, Diane leans in to the problem inasmuch as she can. Sometimes love is not enough to save people. This film will leave you questioning what your love will allow you to endure.
