It's Only the End of the World
- Director: Xavier Dolan
- Writer: Xavier Dolan; Jean-Luc Lagarce
- Producer: Sylvain Corbeil; Xavier Dolan
CGiii Comment
There's a delicacy, an elegance to all this dysfunction...shared credit goes to Dolan's artistry and Ulliel's perfectly nuanced performance.
Driven by words and coloured with emotion, the intensity is wrought from the closely-shot cinematography...this is a beautiful, heart-breaking and mature film.
We - the audience - know...they - the characters - are finding out. We are privy to the feelings behind those long looks, that long-lasting hugs, those quick [knowing] winks...Dolan - expertly - takes words out of the frame and replaces them with welling music, welling emotion. It's intense, it's exhausting, it's breath-taking.
The jealousies, resentments and frustrations are all so deeply ingrained...contradicting that old adage: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Family dynamics are unique...they are powder-kegs primed to explode. Dolan allows his audience to witness this family exploding...his demands are immense, never taking his audience for granted...the realities, the realisations, the revelations are as subtle as subtle can be...when being whacked in the face with a fist.
He punches walls...watch it to understand. It is a truly finite, defining and heart-breaking moment!
Truth, undeniaby, hurts...
A masterful film...not easy...but...succinctly...thought-provoking and rewarding.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
After 12 years of absence, Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), a writer, goes back to his hometown, planning on announcing his upcoming death to his family. As resentment soon rewrites the course of the afternoon, fits and feuds unfold, fuelled by loneliness and doubt, while all attempts of empathy are sabotaged by people's incapacity to listen and love.
Cast & Characters
Lea Seydoux as Suzanne;
Marion Cotillard as Catherine;
Vincent Cassel as Antoine;
Gaspard Ulliel as Louis;
Nathalie Baye as Mother