TOM AT THE FARM Review

Release Date: August 14, 2015 (Limited)
Director: Xavier Dolan
MPAA Rating: NR
Run Time: 102 min.

Few figures in the cinematic world are as immediately polarizing as Xavier Dolan, the twenty-something filmmaker who unabashedly trolls cinephiles through his supposed lack of knowledge of Jean Luc Godard and Ingrid Bergman, his controversial Cannes jury appointment and the occasional vicious outburst at critics.

His films seem to only cause more division. While many have taken to his vibrant, chaotic melodramas, others find his lack of structure and energized visual style nauseating and shrill. With each film, Dolan seems to be listening less and less to his detractors, with the colors only getting brighter and the on-screen emotional outbursts and climaxes becoming more soapy.

With his fourth feature (finally finding its way to the US, months after his fifth film, Mommy, was released), fans and critics of Dolan will be treated to a very different type of melodrama, in the vein of a classic thriller. In fact, it may be his very best – with each tantalizing plot strand and character interaction adding up to a vicious and perverse psychosexual melodrama.

Few filmmakers relish the opportunity to dig deep into the psyches of their protagonists like Dolan. While his penchant for long speeches and pop-song interludes may be absent, his fascination with queer dynamics and broken relationships remains intact.

Accompanied by a string-heavy soundtrack (a blatant callback to golden-age Hollywood thrillers), Dolan introduces us to Tom (Dolan, also starring), a young man grieving the loss of his partner and close friend, Guillaume. Tom decides to attend Guillaume’s funeral and pay condolences to Guillaume’s mother, Agathe (Lise Ray), despite the fact that she was unaware of her son’s sexuality. Ray is spectacular in an abbreviated appearance, casting a shadow of menace and intrigue but also of frailty. While his mother welcomes Tom, Guillaume’s brother, Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), is far less warm, being aware of what was going on between Tom and his brother. What follows is a messy tale of blackmail, deceit, homophobia and self-hatred.

While Dolan’s films are generally known for their near manic levels of emotion and bombast, Tom at the Farm is a refreshingly chilly change of pace for Dolan, his usually varied color palette traded in for a slightly mistier quality.

As always, he is a fascinating craftsman. While his choices may not always feel like the perfect fit, each shot seems aligned perfectly, many of his boldest risks (if not quite all of them) pay off. All of this craft is channeled into Dolan’s finest script yet – a deeply unsettling thriller that has more to say about homophobia and repressed memories and desires than most films I’ve seen.

The microscope is focused on a family ruined by a single terrible act, by denial of their own kin’s sexuality, and onto Tom himself – who may be in his own state of denial and replacing that lost love with dangerous self-loathing.

Though it is, in numerous ways, a divergence (especially in between the grandiose, romantic epic Laurence Anyways and the prize-winning Mommy), Dolan’s Tom at the Farm continues to ratchet up tension and explore interpersonal relationships in a refreshingly familiar way, in an entirely unexpected genre. If nothing else, this film should cement Dolan as one of the premiere young voices in cinema.