Review CXXXV - Mommy

Review 135
Mommy (2014)

Salut tout le monde! Des fois, j'oublie que ça fait, quoi, quatre ans que j'ai commencé ce blogue? Mais, pendant tout ce temps, je n'ai jamais oublié ma première critique, celle pour J'ai tué ma mère - principalement à cause de Xavier Dolan et François Arnaud... Ahem. C'est une blague (maybe?), mais de toute façon, après d'avoir vue Les amours imaginaires (je l'ai pas aimé), j'ai pris une pause avec Xavier Dolan. Avec la sortie de Mommy avec Anne Dorval (t'en souviens?), Antoine-Olivier Pilon et Suzanne Clément (Patrick Huard fait une apparition dans le film! Whaaat!), qui a gagné/était nommé pour des prix et des prix, notamment à le festival de Cannes, j'ai décidé que c'était le temps de le regarder. Wise choice, no?

Diane Després (Anne Dorval), "Die" for short, is still attempting to control her son, Steve O'Connor Després (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), after the death of her husband three years ago. Steve is prone to violent outbursts leading to a near incarceration in a psychiatric institution for minors based on a new law only for his mother to intervene and take the responsibility of caring for him at home. At her wits end of trying to pay for the fees of his destructive behaviour with little success in holding a job, her shy and stuttering neighbour, Kyla (Suzanne Clément), comes to their rescue.

At face value, Mommy is pretty similar to J'ai tué ma mère for the reason that it shows the turmoil of a mother dealing with her sometimes overbearing teenage son. You know all that yelling, all that anger, all that passion from J'ai tué ma mère? It gets even crazier in Mommy. I was sitting there wondering what the HELL was even going down half the time because seriously, the movie is intense. But that is Xavier Dolan's style (my judgement from the three films I watched) - he brings people to their wits end and shows their extreme anger and frustration and desperation, which I have to say is handled super well in Mommy. I remember finding it kind of blah in Les amours imaginaires, but he got it right in Mommy. Now, how he gets there is a different story. I would be sitting there thinking that Die was the most selfish woman in the world, and just wanting to rip out my hair thinking that any mother would give her life to her son. But I have to admit that one, I've never been a mother, so while I am told it is a selfless act, I don't know how much a mother actually forgets herself when caring for her child, especially when they're fifteen; two, Steve est FUCKÉ BIEN RED, he is insane, so I can only say that I'm sure any single parent would be driven to near insanity with the kid; and three, she struggles financially, so that stress is also there, and hence why she goes to men (like Patrick Huard) for "exploitation". It makes for an experience, I'll tell you that. If you're into films of real personal struggle, one that delves into the end of patience and the breakdown of a person, Mommy is definitely it and I recommend it for that.

But Mommy doesn't stop there because it also encompasses the struggle of the Québécois identity as it exists in the 21st century. I'll briefly explain Québec, which I can't remember if I've done previously, so bear with me please. Basically, like the Basque nationalists of Spain or the Venetians of Italy, the Québécois have always had an identity separate of that of the rest of Canada, which makes basic sense to me given that Québec is French-based and follows the France law system. Sure, provinces that border Québec will have French-speakers who don't identity as Québécois, but in the province of New Brunswick, lying east of Québec, a friend from there told me that the French speakers and English speakers kept to themselves - it was not as "bilingual" as I had imagined. A good example which has stuck by through and through is when a presentateur on a television show explained that while most of the English-speaking world was preoccupied with who had shot J.R. (a reference to the show Dallas), Québec was laughing at the jokes of Rock et belles oreilles. There were two referendums held, the last one in 1992, and I will say, living in present-day Québec in a larger city, separatism is no longer a goal. There are parties which stress it, but they've missed major points in the idea behind it and I can't really say anyone takes them seriously. Regardless of this issue, I still firmly believe that Québec has its own identity which differs from the rest of Canada, if only for language and the culture brought from by it.

So how does this relate to Mommy? The film starts off right away with Die walking into a corrections facility (or jail? I didn't catch it, to be honest) to pick up her son and the woman she speaks to is francophone, but from France. She asks Die if she speaks French since Die seems to be ignoring what she is telling her, and Die bitterly tells her, "Well, I don't speak French from France, but yeah, I speak French." I was just there like, "Whooooah, damn!" I have faced this hate when speaking to French people from France, and apparently in France, French speakers are ready to tell you that they speak English if you attempt to speak to them in "québécois". I'm not sure if Brazilians feel the same level of hate in Portugal, but anyway... But yes, there is definitely a hate and Québécois, or at least the ones I have met, are ready to note a distinction between them and the French from France. So this scene, nearly the first speaking scene in the movie, is already showing a shadow on Québec and maybe just a critique on the dialect. The film has another prominent scene right after where Die and Steve are heading to Die's work and need to take a taxi there. The man, a black man from maybe Haiti (I can't really tell from the accent, I'm sorry), doesn't listen to Die when she tells him not to take a particular route since he isn't allowed to turn left, but he seems to ignore her comments. Of course a fight ensues where the man calls Die a "bitch", enraging Steve to no end. He insults him, and Die tells him to calm down and not be racist, with him telling her "I'm not racist, he's just an ass and shouldn't insult you" (I'm being kind). Now, am I saying that Die was perfectly cilivised in her behaviour and that Steve wasn't yelling profanities? No. The cab driver got pissed off and did overextend himself, though he had every reason to be angry, but Mommy is nonetheless throwing in this dilemma with mass immigration and miss-communication in Québec. I know it's this joke all around where cab drivers are always from a foreign country, but it nonetheless points out this stigma in Québec. Finally, at some point when Kyla asks Die what her deceased husband did, she mentions that her invented things, particular some instrument, which Kyla screams about and says she had. Die confirms, "Yeah, until the Americans came in." Honestly, these three instances were enough to put a little highlight on Mommy. Xavier Dolan's focus, at least this is my belief, is to tell the tale of a woman on the brink of insanity. But I can't say I felt a moment of pride when I saw these three scenes come in. Xavier Dolan is not just presenting a film, but making some commentary as well. Wonderful.

Mommy can resonate with any viewer in its message about strength about women and child, but it goes a little bit beyond as well. Be ready for Freudian catches in the film, which was probably the one thing I really didn't get... Anyway, great work, Xavier Dolan, as well as to the superb acting of Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, and Antoine-Olivier Pilon! Awesome!