Xavier Dolan
Mommy

[Contains plot spoilers]

The incredible, almost miraculous thing about this film by Dolan is that it manages to tell a story of great difficulty and pain through a visual symphony that wouldn't be wrong to call an ode to life, freedom, and happiness. The strength of the vision lies precisely in the will to never settle, to not surrender to pain and the negativity of things: in this sense, the real test comes at the end, when Diane finds herself forced to send her son Steve back to reform school. Even in that circumstance, when the ending seems to lean towards pessimism, Diane has the strength to continue hoping, telling the incredulous Kyla “I win!”. Steve himself is depicted in the final sequence attempting to escape from the institution he's confined in: but his escape is not one of suffering, it is an irresistible, perhaps even reckless, life-affirming surge.

This quintessential positivity is highlighted in the film by various elements:

Mommy is a powerfully musical film: the songs are countless and almost always full of joy and positivity. These are often purely pop songs (Oasis, Dido, Simple Plan, Lana Del Rey) that support Steve's vital impulses.

The dialectic between Steve, his mother, and Kyla surely serves to show the boy's aggression and psychological complexities, but at the same time, in a dual game always on the edge, it works perfectly as a tool for hilarity: there are definitely laughs when watching this film, but they are more genuine and heartfelt because, even for the viewer, they come as consolation for the difficulties besieging the mother-son pair. Precisely because at its core their life is on the brink of catastrophe, the small, perhaps futile, joys of everyday life take on immeasurable value.

The use of light is fundamental in showing the prevalence of optimism: moments of true drama are surrounded by darkness, I think of when Steve grabs his mother by the neck and she locks herself in a dark closet, I think of the sequences in the bar with Patrick; Steve's problems' flare-ups are often anticipated by color signals, but the vast majority of sequences are characterized by powerful luminosity, colors are saturated, spaces often airy. It is also with these chromatics that Dolan conveys the triumph of life, joy, and lightheartedness.

Another reinforcing element of the positive vein in Dolan's vision is the overflowing physicality of his protagonists: Steve and his mother Diane are followed by the camera in all their physical energy. This explains the long and beautiful shots lingering on the mother's movements, on her still-flourishing body: her still-fresh beauty not only partly indicates her immaturity (see the name tag with a little heart), but it is also a signal of innate strength, existential resilience, and agility given to her as a genetic heritage. The bad taste of overly provocative clothing turns into a declaration of intent: Diane does not give up on life, she does not let problems age her. The beauty of this strength lies especially in its unconsciousness, not reasoned but deeply instinctive: as Patrick tells her, her beauty is mainly given by her not realizing it. In the same way, in the final dialogue with Kyla, her superior positivity triumphantly soars: even though Kyla feels guilty about moving to Toronto, this doesn't even cross Diane's mind. The first thought is always joyful, an eager embrace of life. Some moments of despair are the price to pay, but they are like the necessary run-up to make a new leap.

Similarly, Steve is a happy example of contradiction in terms: just as his nihilistic moments are all-encompassing, so are his positive ones with hyperbolic tendencies. We have exquisite representation when Steve spins around with the shopping cart: the swirl of energy is dizzying. Or, Steve running in the middle of the road with the cart, disregarding the oncoming cars.

Mommy is an extraordinary film precisely because it argues the necessity of being happy and taking life positively, essentially relying on nothing. There is no real reason why our protagonists should be happy; vitality comes as inevitable, as the only possible existence. Dolan tells us that there is no life if it is not fully embraced, the only way to live well is to let oneself be lifted by the wind of optimism.

This philosophy is also encapsulated in the arc of Kyla: her stammering is a symbol of the inability to be swept away by the vital flow. At first, the woman is closed off, petrified in front of Diane and Steve: this closure is the child of a family life marked by coldness, a glacial nature given by living every problem negatively. It's no coincidence that her husband and daughter don't become friends with their neighbors: they remain stuck in the tragic immobilism that had robbed Kyla of words. And words flow wonderfully crystal clear when the woman lets herself be uplifted by the whirlwind of energy from Diane and Steve.

To crown such a beautiful and necessary vision, there are also the more technical aspects of the film: the image format (1:1 ratio) is designed to frame, first and foremost, the human figures inhabiting the story. Wonderful close-ups tell the most intimate moments, narrate the loving relationship that ultimately binds a mother and son. This tight frame allows the images never to appear empty, depopulated: we don't have a wide and therefore desolate scenario surrounding people; they are as if embraced by the director's eye, wanting to keep them tightly in a throbbing nucleus.

The film would have been impossible without the masterful performances of the three main actors, Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément. Honestly, I forgot they were actors. I experienced them as real people.

Every moment of joy hides within itself the threat of the next tragic collapse; although no crisis can destroy the inexhaustible energy of the two, the director takes great pleasure in not only stirring up the viewers' cheerfulness but also suggesting to them the imminence of a disastrous event through the silencing of the music or other well-measured artifices of visual language. The supreme example of this poetics is the daydream Diane has the morning she takes her son back to the institution: the piling up of extremely positive images is highlighted as deceptive by an excessive use of music, the rapidity of sequence flow, the photography dominated by reddish colors, and finally the progressive graininess of the images. The return to reality is abrupt and emphasized oppositionally with very cold colors.

The film does not fill the heart because it tells an uplifting story: the story cannot be said to end well. Dolan goes beyond: he tells us that even when everything goes wrong, when life is fraught with thorns and harshness, the only possible way is to live positively, to find joy in the pure act of being in the world, free.