Mommy

With stylish and charged intensity, Xavier Dolan charts the fractious relationship between an uncontrollable teen and his fun-loving mother.

26-year-old Canadian director Xavier Dolan is often praised for his uninhibited audacity and here he delivers a film charged with the exuberance of youthful abandon.

With stylistic intensity it charts the relationship between Diane, a fun-loving single parent and her son Steve, an uncontrollable teen with ADHD and a propensity for violence. When Steve is expelled from his latest juvenile facility, Diane has to take him back home, forcing the sparring pair to re-establish a relationship once more. Dolan’s use of increasingly bold formal techniques, from the use of a narrow 1:1 aspect ratio to the pinball dynamics of his Scorsese-esque camera moves, are entirely appropriate for this story of contained detonation . But it’s the newly formed heart and compassion in his storytelling that really impresses.