Laurence Anyways (2012)
Directed by Xavier Dolan
The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.
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What critics compared Laurence Anyways to
Dolan lifted the slow-motion interludes of Wong’s In The Mood For Love to good effect in Heartbeats, his similarly florid take on unrequited affection, but they’re seamlessly applied to an emotionally direct drama.
The main trio in “Mommy” — like the protagonists in Dolan’s “Heartbeats” and “Laurence Anyways” — take a brief respite inside their own cloistered mini-community, even if it’s bound to burst apart and re-expose them to the disarray of the real world.
(In fairness, that began to change noticeably with “Laurence Anyways” in 2012, which is overly long but mostly terrific.)
Young Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan (Laurence Anyways) continues to progress both visually and narratively while exploring familiar themes.
Though scarcely known in the States, where his sophomore feature “Heartbeats” earned just shy of $600,000, and “I Killed My Mother” and the gender-resistant romance “Laurence Anyways” received only minor arthouse releases, Dolan exploded on the international festival scene in 2009 with a textbook case of “therapy through filmmaking.”
Each of Dolan's previous efforts (I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways and Tom at the Farm ) have received immense critical acclaim.
Centered on an incredible performance from Ann Dorval, with whom Dolan reunites after “Laurence Anyways” and a no less revelatory one from Antoine Olivier Pilon as her son, the film is brimming with the kind of directorial tics and tricks that would in most other contexts be loathsome, but practically every single one of them works here.
The cinematography by Yves Bélanger (who also did the stunning “Laurence Anyways”) expresses Ellis’ youth, curiosity and discovery of freedom through the colors swirling around her and constant business of her surroundings.