Congratulations, you’ve made a very good choice by coming here today to watch the first full-length trailer for preternaturally talented Québécois auteur Xavier Dolan’s Cannes Jury Prize winning film, Mommy. You have exquisite taste.
Reprising the titular issues and themes that he’s explored in pretty much every one of his films preceding Mommy, Dolan’s second film where he doesn’t star also straddles with aplomb the divide between heart-swelling art house experiment and heartbreaking domestic drama as it explores unflinchingly the relationship of an ageing, single mother with her troubled son – his behaviour vacillating between adoration and violence, unnerving displays intimacy and resentment.
Shot in a narrow aspect ratio and set to one of Dolan’s characteristically engaging soundtracks full of moving, melancholic 90s pop (despite the film being set in the near-future, there’s Dido, Oasis, Counting Crows, Celine Dion), there are moments in Mommy that are so exquisite that I found myself reaching for my phone to take photos. The trailer above, however, with its Ellie Goulding and [that other song you hear everywhere], isn’t really indicative of the overarching tone of the moving – one that’ll have you verging on tears and laughter in equal measure. Basically, go see it.
Mommy is getting a Canadian release in September and while there’s no discernible release Australian date as yet, I’d wager you’ll see it on a Dendy marquee later this year or the next.
