It is a characteristic of the young that they are utterly alone with their feelings, and that, conversely, the world revolves around them.
So it is that I Killed My Mother — the brilliantly sure-handed debut of then 19-year-old child-actor-turned-filmmaker Xavier Dolan — is both awash in the existential narcissism of teenage angst, and is, almost despite itself, a universal tale of the Freudian antagonism between teenage boys and their mothers.
The story of how the movie itself was made is inspiring enough — how the gay teenager Dolan poured his admittedly callow frustrations and anger into a script, one that was initially greeted sourly by the funding gatekeepers of Canadian cinema. But after largely funding it himself with what was left of his childhood earnings, I Killed My Mother became the toast of Cannes last May.
It has since been embraced by several film festivals and was singled out for awards by the Toronto and Vancouver film critics associations.
What has earned the huzzahs is a claustrophobic love/hate tale that has been compared by some to Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, at least in terms of cats in a cage clawing at each other with verbiage.
The 16-year-old Hubert (played by Dolan) reviles virtually every word that comes out of the mouth of his mother Chantale (Anne Dorval). In his mind, she has atrocious table manners and dresses dowdily, qualities undoubtedly at the core of why his parents split up.
They rage at each other, and then every so often there is a crack in the armour, as when Hubert storms off, raging, “What would you do if I died today?”
“I would die tomorrow,” she murmurs, in an unheard reply.
But the drama that brings their antagonism to a boil stems from Hubert’s refusal to “come out” to his mother. She discovers his sexual orientation when a friend at a tanning parlour cheerily mentions how nice it is that Hubert and her son are a couple. It is, in Chantale’s mind, an act of betrayal that warrants a response in kind.
The response: Send Hubert to a boarding school, thus tearing apart his romance with the pleasant and utterly supportive Antonin (Francois Arnaud), who is nonetheless leery about Hubert taking up with other guys. (At a boys’ boarding school? Colour us shocked.)
Dolan’s dialogue is precocious, with literary references and snappy responses. He also uses some contrivances, such as the “broken fourth wall” confessional. But perhaps being too young to recognize any approach as anything but fresh, he never lets up on his commitment to the moment, infusing every scene with the deliciously accurate overwrought drama that screams “teenager.”
That Dolan unearths a larger truth may be an accident, but it is a real strength of I Killed My Mother. Love and hate are the incongruent, entwined emotions we live with all our lives.
Yes, we do hurt the ones we love. And the greater the love, the greater the hurt.
(This film is rated 14A)
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