Boy Erased (2018)

Joel Edgerton must have some issues. The writer and director cast himself as the villain. This is no sympathetic villain either. I don't think he means to condone his character's behavior. Does he identify with the hack Christian therapist Victor Sykes? Overall, the movie is good. It exposes the truth about these "gay conversion retreats" for the child abuse they are; the Evangelical audience watches it for this purpose. But for audiences on the liberal coasts, it is more revelatory than expository. This is a whole Evangelical world so far from my own that I couldn't have fathomed.  There are some very troubling scenes in this movie, absolutely appalling stuff. Maybe none more than the victim blaming and the disturbing rape that goes ignored. And it makes me dislike the movie to a degree, again even though Edgerton is not explicitly condoning it. That it goes unpunished and uncommented on, almost amounts to effectively condoning it.

Mommy (2014)

Xavier Dolan is certainly stylish in music and cinematography, but man is he pretentious. What's with the square aspect ratio? I swear it was all just so he could film that one shot where Steve extends his arms and stretches the aspect ratio. But then he does it again on a landscape shot, and I can't understand why. It doesn't have the same effect as the manual shift. The other obviously pretentious part is the copious amount of yelling and cursing, which works appropriately in the context of the movie. The dialogue is actually excellent. And the acting of all three leads is phenomenal. There are some really powerful scenes. I don't quite know how I feel about that final act. I think it very well could have ended with the scene in the store, as a final act of love. The last act is the only one in which the dystopian Canada comes into play-sort of unnecessary. The last act is for the love to be reciprocated, I get that and it makes the film so much more ethically complex.

It's Only the End of the World (Juste la Fin du Monde) (2016)

From what I've seen of Xavier Dolan at the closing ceremony, he is beloved by his fellow filmmakers, but derided by the critics. And he gets teary very easily. He cried even watching other people win awards. He's like the John Boehner of the Cannes Film Festival.

But about the film…in short, I didn't like it. There are some good things about it amidst a cluster of bad things. I appreciate Dolan's style. There is a great use of head-banging pop music accompanied by strong colors and quick cuts. There is an excellent wordless dream-like scene of stylish reminiscing. The cinematography is gorgeous. He makes use of a very shallow depth of field, focusing on one thing at a time, leaving the rest of the shot in a blur. There are very close-up shots of faces (often crying or teary eyed) that are kind of unsettling. The acting is very good but the script that they're dealing with is just too emotional. There is so much yelling and screaming and I don't think it's all justified. Because the script is so circuitous. It goes around in circles without getting anywhere and freaking Antoine just riles everyone up sometimes seemingly for the hell of it. And I'm just so sick of Antoine. He provides all the drama, but his brand of drama is just exhausting and excessive.