Matthías Y Maxime

Dysfunctional family issues especially with his mother, repressed feelings for a childhood friend (Max), broken relationships, guilt are the cliched contexts in his last work which can be seen often in his previous films such as Tom at the farm, I killed my mother, Mommy... Quiet predictable script. Rating: 5.5

Matthias (Matt) and Maxime (Max) have been best friends since early childhood. While they still share a common group of friends, their life journeys have diverged - Matt is a successful lawyer, while Max is a bartender. Max has guardianship of his mother (Dolan again with mother issues?) and may be trying to get away from her by passing the guardianship to his aunt and going to Australia for 3 years. As the date for Max's leaving nears, Matt's behavior becomes more erratic, though he is unable to properly express his feelings, even though Max offered to delay his departure and have them spend a last weekend together.

The submerged feelings theme reminds me of Happy Together. However, I don't quite buy that 7-year-old feelings for companionship are a precursor to what might be 30-year-old sexual feelings.

The large number of characters is a distraction, as it took energy to try to figure out which were of significance. The many sets / locations also seemed excessive for the story. Dolan may have gotten a bigger budget, but it the film could do with some tightening.

As someone who has just finished watching all of Xavier Dolan´s films, I can say this movie has the same three characteristics as all (or most) of his other work: complicated relationships and identity as a theme, an awesome soundtrack, and dialogues where silences and what is left unsaid are just as important as words. This is good or bad, depending on whether you were expecting his work to have evolved after a decade.

I watched this movie just out of boredom. At first, it looked like it was an ordinary LGBTQ story. In fact, it is. But the thing is it's not about the story, but how it portrays. It's rather interesting because of the actings and how naturally the plot follows.

"For people who become besties, their cherished friendship is always alloyed with a degree of love or affection, and a carnal one is not excluded. There is an old saying "no pure friendship can exist between a man and a woman", which now we shall modify to "no pure friendship can exist between two persons". So thematically, Dolan delves into something more removed from queerness, the consummation of Matthias and Maxime's making out in the utility room, coming lately and first in close-ups and then sublimely peered through a window pane, is less sexual than emotional, it is two best friends saying goodbye to each other, words fail them, but bodies don't lie, a rite of passage towards adulthood."

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.