The Best And Worst Of The 2016 Sydney Film Festival, Reviewed
Sorry, the movie about Daniel Radcliffe's farting corpse is a bit of a stinker.
The Film That Proves Xavier Dolan Is Fallible
It’s Only The End Of The World, dir. Xavier Dolan
Starring: Gaspard Ulliel, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Nathalie Baye
Reviewed by: Glenn Dunks
Gaspard Ulliel is Louis, a writer who is returning to his family home in France during the middle of a heatwave. He brings with him news of a fatal illness that he wants to inform everyone about in a reveal befitting his reputation as a famous storyteller. But, before he can attempt to utter these words, he finds himself stepping into the maelstrom of mixed emotions that his return from a 12-year absence has wrought.
This cagey and almost claustrophobic drama — so, so many close-ups — adapted from a stage play by the late Jean-Luc Lagarce, is unfamiliar territory for Canadian director Xavier Dolan. Not because the high-wire familial dynamics are anything new. He’s covered this territory in some form or another in all of his five masterful prior works (and he’s only 27!). Rather it’s because It’s Only The End Of The World received withering, eviscerating reviews when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Despite winning the festival’s second place prize, its critical reputation as an almost unwatchable disaster preceded it before its first international premiere in Sydney.
If anything, the film’s biggest crime is simply not being even a particularly interesting failure. Though it’s admittedly not as polished as Dolan’s other films, it feels decidedly average. Is it because he’s adapted somebody else’s work that comes tied to a queer history (Lagarce died of AIDS in 1995) that Dolan doesn’t have a personal connection to? Is it simply because he was rushed between productions and churned this one out at an even speedier pace than he usually does? Or is it because his usual flirtations with excess style including playful use of aspect ratios, flamboyant costuming, left-of-centre pop musical selections, and overt queerness are dulled by the more sombre material, which is quite obviously meant for the stage?
I’d say it’s a mix of all of these things. While Dolan is great at sharply ramping up the tension — just recalling that erotic, confusing tango sequence from his Hitchcockian Tom At The Farm gets me tingly — It’s Only The End Of The World never reaches a point of dramatic climax to make up for the wildly all-over-the-shop acting of the cast. Vincent Cassel is repulsively excessive, Marion Cotillard is very reserved (but gosh, what she can do with just her eyes!), Nathalie Baye is cartoonish, and Lea Seydoux is best in show perfection. Too much is left unspoken, while at the same time too many scenes repeat points made earlier.
Even if it didn’t entirely come off, it’s great to see Dolan doing something out of his comfort zone. It’s far from the disaster that Cannes suggested, and no amount of ambivalence towards the film can hide the fact that he is a talented filmmaker and stop me from anticipating whatever he does next. In this case it’s his English-language debut with Jessica Chastain, Kit Harington, Taylor Kitsch, and Susan Sarandon.
For fans of: anxiety, feeling slightly superior to creative wunderkinds.
Opening in Australia: TBC
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