A blow to the head, a kick to the chest, and a shock to the system, Xavier Dolan’s fifth feature, Mommy, is a bludgeoning film that captures the hysteria of motherhood. It’s overwhelming, powerful, and bracingly sincere, though my initial reaction was that turning down the dials a bit (it’s 139 minutes of fierce family drama) may have served it well. But then I thought, maybe not: Dolan, known for his hyper-personal storytelling, is one of those rare filmmakers who truly can’t help but be himself, and even though Mommy isn’t the most immaculately crafted movie out there, there’s no doubt that it’s 100% him on the screen, and dialing anything down would seem like a betrayal of identity.

As a newcomer to the French-Canadian enfant terrible’s work, I sought out his first, semi-autobiographical film, I Killed My Mother (which he directed at only 19 years old; he’s a geezer now at 25), after seeing Mommy. It was an enlightening experience to watch them in that order, to say the least. In both films Anne Dorval plays the single mother of a problem child, and while the first film was inspired by the resentment Dolan felt for his mother as a teen, with Mommy he takes a stab at telling a story from a mom’s-eye-view, painting the mother in a much more sympathetic, loving light. Then, we had Dolan himself assuming the role of the boy; now, we have Antoine-Olivier Pilon, a terrific young actor whose explosive onscreen presence can barely be contained (not that Dolan had any intention of containing…well, anything).

The film opens by unexpectedly plopping us in an alternate-future Canada where by law parents of volatile young children have ultimate power over whether or not their child is institutionalized, bypassing the court system altogether. (This ultimately has little bearing on the story as a whole, though as a device opens up many opportunities for drama and internal struggle, all of which Dolan seizes.) Diane “Die” Déspres (Dorval) must pick up her son Steve (Pilon), who’s been kicked out of one such institution following an incident involving him setting the lunchroom on fire and seriously injuring another kid. Steve is a short-tempered, volcanic personality who’s relentlessly rude and yet somehow charming; he’s got great enthusiasm, though more often than not his temperament turns red and his energy gets pointed in the wrong direction. Die’s similar in many ways, though she’s got a better hold of her emotions and has infinitely more patience.

While he loves his mom deeply, Steve seems born to break her patience, and the relationship is always on the brink of full-meltdown. One day an argument over a stolen(?) necklace escalates to disturbing, violent levels, and a miracle walks through the door in the form of Kyla (Suzanne Clément), their neighbor from across the street. She has a cooling effect on the two, stabilizing the household almost immediately, though Steve’s thrashing temper takes a bit of working to wrangle (a fantastic kitchen scene that ends on the floor is the breaking point). She home schools Steve to help him graduate high school, affording Die more time to work on her career, and in return the two loudmouths teach Kyla–who’s recently been stricken with a speech impediment–to open up and express herself more freely. Together, the trio form a tight bond and provide for each other all they need…that is, until the repercussions of Steve’s pyro display at juvi rears its ugly head.

There’s some uncomfortable sexual tension that goes on throughout the movie, and some of Steve’s wild outbursts are incredibly hard to watch. But this is a story about love, specifically love’s ability to thrive even in the strangest, most difficult environments. If you saw these people at a glance, on their worst day (or even a normal day), you’d probably be pretty alarmed by their behavior. What Dolan does so well here is get us to understand these people and their uncommon lives and show us all of the weirdness and beauty and ugliness of it all. The protracted running time helps in this aspect of his vision, giving us time to sit with and know the characters, though some scenes do feel redundant, like they’re serve this purpose above all others.

Enough can’t be said about how good the three leads are and how well they respect each other’s space. Pilon lives in the highs and lows, being tender and sweet one minute, murderous and insufferable the next, on a dime. Dorval plays mostly in the middle, always right on the very edge of a breakdown, reeling herself in just a second away from losing her shit. It’s a performance of tortured restraint, and when she finally does break down, it’s unforgettable. Clément is the chill pill, balancing the high-strung tension of the other two with reason and a soothing touch.

There’s a fantastic sequence that demonstrates exactly what’s special about Dolan as a filmmaker. The movie is shown in 1:1 aspect ratio, which is mostly a thematic choice, and in a montage that abridges the best period in the trio’s relationship (maybe a few weeks), we see Steve looking straight into the camera in a moment of pure rapture as Oasis’ “Wonderwall” floods the speakers. Wearing a giant smile, he sticks his arms out in front of him, towards us, and spreads them wide, the picture’s aspect ratio expanding as if he’s shaping the world (our world) to his liking. In a less assured director’s hands this would be gimmicky, but instead it’s an amazing movie moment that made me want to burst.

I was talking with a friend recently about the relationship between self-indulgence, selfishness, ego, and passion, and how they relate to one’s craft (we were talking about chefs, but filmmakers fit into the conversation just as well). There’s some perfect ratio of all these things that sometimes come together and result in an artist who exists outside the boundaries and churns out incredible work that isn’t perfect, but is wholly irreplaceable. Dolan’s one of those guys, and Mommy is evidence of that.

Two months shy of his 26th birthday, Xavier Dolan is traveling across the United States for press on his latest feature Mommy. Already released in several European countries as well as the Québécois Dolan’s home of Canada, the film will see an American release on January 23rd. Mommy is Dolan’s 5th film as a director, a remarkable achievement considering his relative youth; however, with Mommy, Dolan has gained increased notoriety outside of film festival circuits. After splitting the Jury Prize at Cannes with Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, Mommy was selected as Canada’s official entry into the Foreign Film race for the upcoming Academy Awards.

Although his film failed to collect an Oscar nomination, Dolan remains hungry to immerse himself in the art of filmmaking. He speaks passionately about the importance of actors, and his desire to act. Speaking to a group of reporters, including Way Too Indie, Dolan discusses his lack of culture, how he’s evolved as a director since his debut I Killed My Mother, and growing up surrounded by women.

You were thinking of taking a break from filmmaking to go to art school?
I would love that though.

But you’re not going to do it?
Well, I can’t. The only time in my life when I could do that was last– this fall, just for one term. And I can’t anymore because I invested all my time in traveling, being in Los Angeles for the Oscars and the Golden Globes, which worked out so fine. I’m kidding. So no, it was worth giving it a try, but that project with going back to school was for this fall.

Do you feel different when you receive all this acclaim, and you receive the award [at Cannes] at the same time as Godard, can you be insecure?
I was never insecure. I’m passionate about what I do, and I love working with actors, and I love acting, writing these stories and nothing has ever made me feel insecure. Some reviews have hurt me but they’ve always been educational at the very least. The thing I’m the most satisfied with is that when I read the reviews on the movie, I don’t see the plethora of influences listed. People have rejoiced in pointing at, “This. This. This.” That’s always been very tiresome in the way that I don’t have a very large culture. So the influences that people had identified were almost systematically wrong.

Does it make you though want to go back and look at those films?
Of course, but when? At night?

Yeah! 3 in the morning.
Yeah, no, I’d rather get some sleep for the interviews at 9am. I mean, it will be a long life of watching films. But I started watching more serious films… when I was maybe 15 or 16. And I started directing movies when I was 19 so there was only this much time that I could spend really bingeing films and trying to catch up on a century of filmmaking.

And you’ve been making films consistently.
Ever since.

Why do you think you’re so prolific? Has it been almost one per year?
Yeah. Five in five years, but not necessarily… there have been two in one year twice. Anyway. I don’t know, I’ve just followed my need for films and sets and being in that adrenaline-driven journey of shooting a film. It feels like in between movies, I’m sort of waiting for something to happen. When I’m not working and creating movies, I’m standing by and just running circles.

Could you talk about the process of casting Antoine because it seems he could be totally innocent looking and at the same time the opposite, and go into a raging fit. It’s quite difficult to cast someone like that, could you talk about the process of casting him?
Yeah, it was a process of one second and a half. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t about finding a kid who would be ADHD and violent and impulsive. I would obviously never see that in someone. The thing is that we shot this music video [for Indochine’s “College Boy”] where he was this character who was a bullied kid, which is pretty much the opposite of what he is in Mommy, where no one will bully that child. But it was not in his performance, but his attitude on the set.

He was such a professional young man, and he was so kind, and listening. Somehow he wasn’t exactly that way on Mommy. He was way more rambunctious, I guess. We had this complicity so he would allow himself more familiarity which is great, but he was a little less calm, I’d say, than on the “College Boy” set. So the process of casting him was just believing we could do it together and that he could listen to my directions and that he would bring that character to life, which he did.

Compared to some of your other films, this is a bit more adrenalized. Faster paced, faster edited in some ways. Obviously the boisterous scenes. Is that a result of just the particulars of this film, or have you decided to tighten up your process, and I wonder if it’s a reflection of the film itself or is it a reflection of you?
No, I think it’s honestly more about the story and the script. A lot of people have told me how Laurence is long but Laurence is a film that would have felt twice as long if it would have been 25 minutes shorter. It’s a film that needed, whatever the opinions of people are, it’s a film that needs to span this much time because the story itself spans that many years.

There’s nothing worse for me than trying to tell a long story in a really short way, in a sort of skipped fashion. Where it becomes anecdotal, and it can never have any pace in stalling itself. You’re always jumping in motion. But Mommy was about the hysterical rhythm of these people’s lives. So the film had to mirror that. It isn’t the result of…

An internal process?
[nods] It’s more just addressing what the film itself and the script were calling for, which is a fast paced edit and constant motion.

Do you heavily storyboard your films or do you just turn on the camera and let the actors be for some of the more powerful scenes?
Somewhere in between I guess. I have a shot list, having a shot list does not keep the actors from being. But I’ve worked with a director as an actor who never knew how he would shoot a scene until he saw the actors block it. I don’t work that way. I know that I want a certain shot, that I want a certain dolly, that I want this and that and this and that but of course, I’ll always adapt myself to what the actors do. And if they bring something that needs me to adjust the direction we are taking or the shot list, everything is changeable. I’m not being psycho-rigid about what my needs are. The story was character driven and it’s always about the acting. It’s always about the actors.

What inspired you to place that introduction of a fake health care law on the beginning of the film?
Well, at a certain stage in preproduction, I saw this specialist, this doctor. We had a conversation about Steve’s character because I was curious to see if the psychological and emotional arcs made sense, which they did, they made sense. But then we started scouting locations and we went to a true correctional facility, and the principal who took us through the place, took us around, told me that the first scene in his humble opinion didn’t make sense. Because the movie starts with a correctional center. Steve is being expelled because he’s misbehaved, which a correctional center would never do.

When a kid misbehaves in a correctional center they just increase the level of surveillance and attention they can produce for that child. Their mandate is the protect the citizens against these children, and to protect the children against themselves. Then I realized that Mommy would never make sense sociologically and legally speaking and that I had a choice to make: telling a story that was rigorous in terms of research legally speaking, or just the story that I wanted to tell which was the story of mother love and friendship.

Had I not opted for that, I would have had to incorporate all these social workers, police officers, court scenes… it’s not a documentary. So I had this fictional Canada thing in the beginning to sort of get rid of the eventual remarks from people that worked in correctional centers or whatever. Not only that, I thought that this law would create and would illicit an actual moral dilemma, which I think is crucial for Die because of course a mother would never drop her child. That’s what she will say.

But I personally have friends who have child [sic] who have behavioral disorders or are mentally ill or are autistic, you know? They told me that what broke their hearts about reading the script, because some of them were actresses in the script. Not the leads, other roles. And they just told me that it broke their heart. What was most heart-wrenching for them was not the ending or this or that particular scene. [It was] when she drops him in the hospital. They identified and told me, “it’s awful to say that I often think about that. And that I see myself… doing that. I don’t think about that all the time but I do think about it, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about that.”

So hearing that from a mother made me think, “Well then there’s got to be a choice.” Because when you can’t do something, when it is illegal, of course you tell everyone, “I would never do that.” But when it’s possible, it’s another conversation.

Was it a conscious choice not to reveal more of Kyla’s background?
I don’t know I just thought it was not necessary to stress anything about her past. I gave away all the things that I thought were interesting to expose. If we take that scene for example when she jumps on him, jumps on his throat. When he aggresses her, I guess, and snatches the heart locket, her reaction is so physical. She seems so incapable to produce that sort of anger in that sort of energy that it comes from really, really, really deep and far. I think that someone who loves film, and loves watching film, cannot help but understand this necklace is associated with death. It’s the first part of understanding Kyla’s mysterious past.

Then there’s a scene right after where she’s changing because he’s pissed on her ‘cause he was scared. She’s putting on some other clothes and you can see by her bed table a display of frames, family photos, and then you see the photo of a little boy. And you’ve seen her girl, you’ve seen her daughter. We’ve talked about the daughter, where is the little boy? We’ve seen the girl’s room, we’ve seen the daughter’s room, so where is the boy? He’s dead.

It’s not about Kyla’s past, it’s about Kyla’s future. She is seeking revival and resurrection through that new friendship within that new household. So that’s why I thought we did it. And with Suzanne because Suzanne has helped build this character’s past. When we embarked on Mommy nothing of that was really clear. There were some lines here and there to explain and also, what we liked is that she never told Die about her past. She never told her either that she’s driving the car at the beginning of the film and she sees the car accident.

Kyla is on the car accident scene. She doesn’t tell Die, “Hey by the way, I was right behind you when you had that accident I saw that happen.” It’s something you would mention, you would bring that up, you would say, “I was there, how weird?” But she doesn’t reveal anything about herself, her life. Because it’s all about Die. It’s about how Die and Steve are impressive to her and she envies their freedom somehow. Which is ultimately a cheat because they are not free. But everybody has an influence.

If I can ask about Anne and Suzanne, they were both actresses who were in your first film and I’m wondering how your working relationship has evolved as you’ve gained a little experience?
Well, there’s two way of looking at it I guess. Yes, the fact that I’ve learned more about acting. In Laurence Anyways I wasn’t acting so I literally spent a year of my life [on it], sort of. It was 75 days of shooting, a very long shoot, and I was just watching actors. Watching their craft, watching their strengths, their weaknesses. Learning how they work, and how they think and operate and everything. So then in Tom At the Farm I tried to apply these things to my own craft. And then Mommy was number five, and by then I had learned enough new things that the experience with Anne was completely different from that of I Killed My Mother.

But what’s also changed is that within these years I’ve grown closer to both these women. And I know them in their intimacy, and I know them in their private lives, and I know how they laugh and how they cry and who they are. So what’s fun about this is not only to write characters as far away and as different as what they’ve done in their careers, but also as different as can be then who they are in their lives.

One thing that’s consistent in your films is that they tend to be about a character stepping out of their cocoon. Would you agree and can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, they’re about characters breaking free, breaking the rules, but also trying to fit in society and being ostracized by that society because they are different. It’s always the same theme coming back.

Most of your films deal with outsiders, and I was wondering if growing up gay made you feel like an outsider. Do you think that will change in the near future?
No, I think that the themes that mark you and prey on your mind all the time and concern you and touch you are related to the things that have left a print on you when you were a child. So being gay as a child and [laughs] today still has brought me moments and scenes of being misunderstood and feeling like a misfit. Or finding my voice and my path, trying to define myself in the eyes of others, in the eyes of mothers, in the eyes of women, in the eyes of men. So that’s why I feel like I have a natural inclination towards characters in that exact same position. Women are, like gay men, trying to fit within society, which is a space that is shaped for men, whatever the progress seems like it is, it’s still defined by the predominance of males.

I think women are trying to fit in, and are fighting, and that’s why I associated with women characters. It is through women characters that I feel like I can most effectively and most efficiently [express] my fights and my claims. I hope it’s clear and it’s not lost in translation. What I’m trying to say is that in my life I have been watching women fight a lot more than I’ve been watching men fight but of course we’re not defined by our gender, we’re defined by our quest. Who we are as individuals. But it so happens that in my childhood, I was surrounded by women and they are the figures I saw fighting for who they were and are. So naturally, I do write for women and mothers, I guess.

What’s next? Are you writing a project? Acting for someone else in a project? What are the new goals, the next set of goals?
I think that within the next two years I’ll be working on my own movies as a director, a lot. There might be a project from a script I’ve not produced. But I really need to act. Like, if I want to keep having a healthy relationship with actors, I need to act myself, because I give a lot of my time and energy and writing dialog for actors, and finding costumes for actors, and directing actors and working with actors, and filming actors, and lensing actors, and doing CGI for actors. At a certain point… I need to act myself, too.

When discussing a new Xavier Dolan, it’s his age and not his movie that takes center stage. After all, he’s only 25-years-old [insert appropriate number of jealous exclamation points.] He started his film making career at the same time most of the us struggle with some dispensable university degree, and he came to this year’s Cannes with four features under his belt, including the fantastic debut I Killed My Mother and Un Certain Regarde winner Laurence Anyways. We already know his favored themes (tolerance of sexual orientation, fraught youth vs. exhausted adults, and a general lack of human connection) and his use (or overuse) of style and indulgent running times, have garnered some criticism over a frustrating self-awareness and a hyperactive creativity bordering on the pastiche. Well, this year with Mommy it would seem that Dolan is finally honing in his creativity, or at least, using an integral part of himself in a much more assured manner. However, there are still moments of frustration that Dolan naysers will not be able to get behind.

Diana “Die” Despre (Anne Dorval) is a single mother trying to keep it together with a meager job and no help from welfare. Her troubled son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is thrown back into her care after causing a tragedy which left some kids with third degree burns. Her protests not working, Die has no choice but to take Steve in and in their first interaction we realize her reservations instantly; his ADHD makes him into an insufferable, hyperactive and vulgar child with a capital C. Steve needs to be home-schooled, but Die finds it hard to cope with this and keep her job (at which, she runs into further humiliation) so it becomes something of a blessing when their neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clement) walks into their lives. A sensitive soul, struggling with a speech impediment and on sabbatical, Kyla sees through the rough exterior of Die’s and Steve’s dynamic and is thoroughly charmed. The film mostly focuses on the close bond the three make, but never lets us forget that this movie is about a mother constantly cleaning up a broken life.

Dolan’s knack with actors continues as his regulars Dorval and Clement shine through for him once again. Dorval especially, in the title role, is a whirlwind of trashy energy and faded highlights representing a faded lifestyle, but thanks to the way Dolan wrote her, and the way Dorval plays her, Die is instantaneously endearing and we root for her from the moment she has the car accident and mouths off her first curse words. Clement, unlike her tremendous turn in Laurence Anyways, is in the background of this one but a few key scenes pull us toward Kyla as a broken individual we’d love to save. How and why she’s broken is left unclear, however, and this leaves the character feeling a shade less dimensional than I’d liked. Pilon is a star as the Tasmanian Devil who can’t control his fits of anger, racial slurs, and barrage of violent insults. When the film reminds us of how much he looks like Macaulay Culkin, or when the love he has for his mother is so clear that it pains us, Pilon is at his best. Still though, with Clement’s underwritten character and Pilon’s untimely showiness, it’s Dorval who stands the tallest in a staggering award-worthy performance. It’s just too bad she has Marion Cotillard to compete with for Best Actress.

Other than how accomplished the film looks for a 25-year-old, the other thing most people will talk about here is the aspect ratio. It’s 1:1 for most of the film and the first five minutes were infuriatingly claustrophobic. But it doesn’t take long to realize how important this claustrophobia is to the story of these characters, and the beauty of the shots begin to shine, with characters hanging like melancholic portraits. In a significant moment, the aspect ratio breathes and it’s one of the greatest uses of form I’ve seen at Cannes – however, it’s stifled by Oasis’ Wonderwall playing on the soundtrack. And this is where we come back to some of Dolan’s slightly frustrating qualities. The writing and direction of certain scenes lay on the drama a little too thick, with a texture so fabricated by the soundtrack and shot composition a gag reflex almost sets in. And it’s a shame too, because the story of these people and how effectively the friendship and love is evoked really doesn’t need any additives which scream “you know, in case you weren’t sure how you’re supposed to feel, this is how”. Mommy holds the audience’s hand a bit too long, it still has that Dolan self-awareness with the use of pop music, unnecessary slow-motion and one incredibly overburdened montage, and some character decisions make no sense beyond creating empathy. But having said all that, there is no denying the compassion Dolan manages to capture here, and together with his three actors and some excellent writing, for the first time in his career it feels like he’s balanced out his most preferred theme with his showy style, creating a picture pulsating with the grittiness of life’s hardships.