The plot: Diane (Anne Dorval) is a single mother looking after her teenaged son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), who suffers from ADHD. As his mood swings and outbursts grow more frantic and violent, Diane can only hope that she has the strength to help her son through it all. However, when support arrives in the form of their new neighbour Kyla (Suzanne ClĂ©ment), maybe their bond may be enough to help them through it after all… I actively felt a piece of me die as I typed that, and you’ll see exactly why as we go on.
Might as well start out by addressing the most obvious element
of the production: The aspect ratio. Most films released today are in 1.85:1 or
2.39:1 widescreen and, with the advent of widescreen TVs, films are no longer
being cut down to letterbox format for home video release. I bring all this up
because Xavier Dolan’s approach is… interesting. He filmed it in standard
widescreen, then cut it down to 1:1 for release. It is presented as a moving
picture portrait for about 95% of the film, because doing it normally would
have been “extremely pretentious and incompatible” in the director’s own words.
Basically, it was done to give a more intimate view of the events of the
narrative and not simply to make it easier to watch it on an iPhone in portrait
view. Now, to be fair, it is only distracting when first getting used to
watching only the dead-centre of the screen and isn’t a major issue in that
regard.
Where it is an
issue is in how the effect is realised. Rather than being more humble and
private as Dolan wanted, it instead feels like clinical examination; like a
case study in family dynamics that I’m looking at for a psychology lecture. As
a result, the emotional drama ends up falling more times than not because the
decreased screen space makes everything happening feel way too distant to take
in properly. The only time it works to the film’s advantage is a scene where
Steve is being heckled while singing karaoke; then again, it’s because that
scene is supposed to feel cold and
harsh. Now, I did mention how it is like this for most of it, as there are two scenes where the ratio widens into
natural widescreen. These are easily the best parts of the film visually, as
the extra breathing room allows for better audience engagement as well as
working decently as a thematic parallel to the other scenes. However, I’d say
that is more damning than anything else, as these scenes work so well because
they offer a break from the isolating framing. Not only that, they aren’t
nearly fulfilling enough to make the rest of the over-two-hour running time
feel worth it.
It may be rather cold to say that this film fails
emotionally speaking, considering what is depicted, but I will try to bring
some better perspective to the situation. A few short years ago, I pretty much was Steve: A violent and petulant little
shit that, while kind and caring, was too emphatically emotional that it made
day-to-day life a trial for both myself and those around me. I sympathise with
his circumstances immensely… but I don’t sympathise with him. To me, his actions and his attitudes aren’t making me feel
sorry for him because, outside of them and his love for pop music, he doesn’t
have a personality of his own. He’s just a walking, talking spectrum diagnosis
who only has his actions to speak for him and, when those actions are
impulsively violent with very few acts of redemption, it is more difficult than
it should be for me to commiserate. Then we get into how his condition is
handled and… oh boy.
A few short months ago, my own tendencies in the real world
got even more out of hand than they ever did previously. We’re talking police,
ambulance, psych checks, overnight stay at the hospital for my own safety; all
that fun stuff. Had I not been “advised” to step into that ambulance by those
policemen, I probably wouldn’t be here to type this right now. What I am
getting at with all this is that there are times when stricter actions have to be taken in the best interest of
a person’s mental well-being. Here, Diane does everything possible to avoid a
possibility where her son could be put into a psychiatric hospital because she
want to help him herself. Then we get a scene where Steve openly slashes his
wrists at a supermarket, in full view of everyone. Okay, no matter how slack
the medical staff may be, it’s at around this point where anyone would agree that he needs professional help.
However, once Diane finally does just that, the film frames
it as a betrayal and the worst thing she could do. True, the medical staff are
a bit rough, but sometimes that approach is
needed. It isn’t even the fact that this action is taken as a bad thing; it’s
more that this possibility was never
exercised earlier. Okay, making use of the film’s S-18 bill is a little much,
but there are seriously no other medical steps taken to help Steve; he was just
expected to recover on his own with his mother’s help. You want to talk
dangerous thinking? Try a film that shows the same kind of “avoid the
establishment” mentality that fuels most anti-vaxxer parents. I’m all for
freedom of beliefs in all regards, but the line gets drawn when people are at
serious risk of mental/physical harm by those beliefs. I’ve talked about films that
deal very badly with mental disorders on this blog before, like with Love Is Now and Love The Coopers. Somehow, even with how much structurally better this
film is, this is even worse than those two because this one actually took time
to try and deliver pathos for said disorder. In the process, however, it ended
up enforcing extremely hazardous methods that can only end up making things
worse for the people involved.
All in all, even with its wonky and mishandled production
ideas, like the aspect ratio and the rather ill-fitting soundtrack, there isn’t
a whole lot to hate about the film structurally speaking. That said, this film’s stance when it comes to those with mental
disorders and how they should be treated might be some of the most naively
toxic I’ve come across in cinema in a very long time. This transcends simply
being insensitive and goes straight into enforcing potentially dangerous
behaviour; as someone who knows how much a film can influence a person’s world view, I vehemently detest this film on that basis alone.
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