Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Mommy (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.
Directed by Xavier Dolan. Starring Anne Dorval, Antoine Olivier Pilon, and Suzanne Clément.

Mommy is a foreign film about a woman whose high school-aged son has been kicked out of multiple schools and programs due to his antisocial behavior and tendency toward violence. With nowhere else to take him, she brings him home to care for him herself and ends up befriending her new neighbor in the process. I have also seen Xavier Dolan's film Lawrence Anyways and had a similar strong emotional response to that one. The thing that really pulls at the heart here is the strong relationship between mother and son. Even while trying to deal with their own stuff, including his occasionally uncontrollable rages and her furious responses, it is clear from every other interaction they have that they have a very close bond and care for each other very much, even if they don't really know how to handle each other in the real world. The film also makes really beautiful use of its music to give us brief glimpses into the workings of the characters' inner lives. The ending certainly doesn't wrap everything up neatly, but I found myself very moved by it and don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Mommy > The Last Dragon
Mommy > Key Largo
Mommy > Six Degrees of Separation
Mommy < Fright Night (1985)
Mommy > Before Sunset
Mommy < I'm Not Scared
Mommy < Broadway Danny Rose
Mommy > The Banshees of Inisherin
Mommy < Shattered Glass
Mommy < Fail-Safe
Mommy < And Now for Something Completely Different
Mommy < The Young Girls of Rochefort
Final spot: #339 out of 3787, or 91%.

No comments: