With the likes of Laurence Anyways, I Killed My Mother and Tom At The Farm, young queer director Xavier Dolan has become a favourite of film festivals and cineastes, although his movies have yet to break too far beyond that world. However, he appears to be making a few nods towards his film’s commercial prospects with It’s Only the End of the World, which for the first time in one of his movies has internationally recognised stars with Marion Cotillard, Gaspad Ulliel, Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel.
It has diluted his style though, with the movie winning two awards as Cannes. The film arrives in UK cinemas & Curzon Home Cinema on 24 February, so it’s a good time to take a look at the trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Prodigious auteur Xavier Dolan (Mommy) comes of age with his dazzling sixth film It’s Only the End of the World, based on the play of the same name by Jean-Luc Lagarce and featuring an all-star cast of top French actors.
‘After 12 years of estrangement, a writer (Gaspard Ulliel) returns to his hometown, planning on announcing his impending death to his family. However, his mother (Nathalie Baye), tempestuous siblings (Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux) and beleaguered sister-in-law (Marion Cotillard) have their own personal grievances to air. As buried resentments threaten to surface and fits and feuds begin to unfold, all attempts at empathy are sabotaged by the family’s inability to listen and love.
‘Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, It’s Only the End of the World is a bold and stylistically daring melodrama performed with thunderous emotion. Taut, tense and packed with explosive performances shot in claustrophobic close-up, it further confirms Dolan as one of the most singular talents in world cinema.’
Incidentally his next film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, will have an even better known cast, with Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Sarah Gadon, Kit Harington, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Michael Gambon, Thandie Newton and Bella Thorne all starring.
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