Not every 25-year-old filmmaker comes out fully formed, as Orson Welles did with “Citizen Kane.” Xavier Dolan, born in 1989 and already with five features as a director, is less protean in his talent, less wise, less articulate, than wunderkind Welles.
But there’s something urgent going on with this French-Canadian director, and youth has a great deal to do with it. The success of his 2014 Cannes prize-winner “Mommy” has prompted a proper U.S. release for “Tom at the Farm,” a sinister 2013 film directed by and starring Dolan (from a play by Michel Marc Bouchard). The opening half-hour sets up expectations for a familiar kind of social drama, circa 1998.
A grieving man, Tom (Dolan), travels to the Quebec farmhouse of his late lover. The dead man’s brother, Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) makes it clear that Tom won’t be talking about any of that gay stuff, either at the funeral or in front of dear unsuspecting Ma (Lise Roy).
Francis is a bully who begins acting out unresolved something-or-others, leading to the admittedly did-not-see-that-coming moment when he and Tom take a tango (literal, no euphemism) in a barn.
But even this description suggests a path the movie is actually not interested in pursuing; Tom is not a gay saint, and things go a-kilter when Tom convinces a friend (Évelyne Brochu) to visit the farm as part of a strange pretense.
“Tom at the Farm” is more energetic than coherent. But it does go in peculiar directions, spinning around in vertiginous ways predicted by the opening song, a French-language version of that existential Oscar-winner, “The Windmills of Your Mind.”
Dolan loves the close-up, as he demonstrated in “Mommy,” an exciting and ambitious film so aggressive it was finally exhausting. Here, because his own pouty, bleach-blond head is frequently at the center of the frame, Dolan could be accused of extreme self-regard (the Hollywood Reporter review called it a “swooning intoxication” with his own mug).
The charge might be easier to make if Dolan weren’t actually an intriguing screen presence. He’s no Orson Welles — well, nobody is — but such greedy ambition at this tender age (and such Linklater-like productivity) is scintillating to witness.
“Tom at the Farm” (three stars)
A sinister little tale about a grieving man (director Xavier Dolan) visiting the farm family of his late lover. This movie looks conventional for a while, but it’s got some unexpected twists in store — and while it’s not big on clarity, it is interesting to watch. In French, with English subtitles.
Rating: Not rated; probably R for subject matter
Showing: Grand Illusion theater
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