Capone sings the maternal praises of the French-Canadian family drama MOMMY!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Normally a film like MOMMY would be a part of my weekly Art-House Round-Up column, but since this is the only film I'm reviewing this week that is being released in art houses right now, we'll give it a stand-alone review…

In all likelihood, the deciding factor as to whether you enjoy and appreciated the latest from writer-director Xavier Dolan (I KILLED MY MOTHER, HEARTBEATS) might boil down to your reaction to the single, potentially grating performance by Antoine-Olivier Pilon, playing the 15-year-old ADHD-afflicted Steve O'Connor Després in the French-Canadian production MOMMY. Co-winner of the Special Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival and running just shy of two-and-a-half hours, the film tells the story of Diane (Anne Dorval), the widowed single mother of Steve—who was having trouble making ends meet even when her son is away at private school—finds her burdens exponentially increased when he is kicked out and forced to return to her care.

Steve has a cruel sense of humor, a foul mouth, and a destructive temper that can be set off by the slightest provocation, and within the first few hours of them living together again, Diane realizes she's out of her depth. She realizes quickly that sending him to another school is not an option and decides instead to home-school her son. To make matters worse from her perspective, she's still relatively young (early 50s), quite beautiful and still has a spark of passion (and some of Steven's unpredictable temper) left in her that makes quite appealing to men. Not surprisingly, she's fearful that the presence of Steve in her life will have all potential suitors running for the hills.

There's a weird introductory title card indicating that this is Quebec in the near future and that there is some new law in effect having to do with people not being able to care for their out-of-control children, making her struggle all the more urgent. But that fictional law never really comes into play in a serious way, so I'm not sure the point of its use is fully understood. For those familiar with Dolan's previous films, MOMMY seems to be the more sympathetic counterpoint to I KILLED MY MOTHER.

As if sent from a slightly off-kilter heaven, into the picture enters Diane's neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clément), a mousy teacher who is taking time off for reasons kept secret for much of the film. But something about the energy explosion going on across the street draws her to Diane and Steve, and she her calm demeanor does seem to have a soothing impact on Steve, which probably made me the most nervous when watching MOMMY.

To add to the off-kilter story of MOMMY, Dolan and cinematographer Andre Turpin have decided to shoot the film in a 1:1 aspect ratio, in other words, it's a tight square picture with black bars on either side of the screen. This is done for a very specific, quite moving reason (two reasons, actually), but it takes some getting used to.

Somehow this oddball triumvirate strikes a balance in each other, and things seem to proceed swimmingly... until they don't. MOMMY does become a bit of a waiting game to see what exactly Steve will do to screw things up, or how exactly Kyla will show her true, fractured colors. There's no getting around the fact that Steve might be one of the most aggressively unlikeable characters ever put on the screen, and it takes quite awhile for him to earn his charm in our mind. If you can stand to be with him for this epic film, you'll likely find the experience a rewarding one.

You may find it impossible to believe that a film this understanding and sympathetic concerning the how much of a burden motherhood can sometimes be comes from a 25-year-old filmmaker, but based on his previous work, it's clear he's no ordinary artist. There's a flash-forward "fantasy" sequence in the film that so beautifully taps into Diane's desire for her son's future that you can't help but be moved and shaken to your core by this sophisticated cinematic moment. It should come as no surprise that MOMMY was selected as Canada's official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, and I'm genuinely surprised it didn't make the cut.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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