Mommy (2014)

Drama

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writer: Xavier Dolan
Starring: Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Patrick Huard

"Real life is tragic."

Diane is a single mother that finds herself taking full-time custody of her hyperactive and sometimes violent 15-year-old son Steve, who deals with some serious anger management issues and an unhealthy attachment to her. After moving to a new neighborhood, they meet their mysterious and troubled new neighbor, Kyla, who offers to help and slowly inserts herself into their household.

The fifth installment of 25-year-old critically acclaimed French-Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan, Mommy is a beautiful and extremely intense tale of motherly love, told in vivid colors and an Instagram-like 1:1 ratio, a touching story that will go straight to your heart and linger.

Plot summary from IMDb: Forty-six year old Diane Després - "Die" - has been widowed for three years. Considered white trash by many, Die does whatever she needs, including strutting her body in front of male employers who will look, to make an honest living. That bread-winning ability is affected when she makes the decision to remove her only offspring, fifteen year old Steve Després, from her previously imposed institutionalization, one step below juvenile detention. She institutionalized him shortly following her husband's death due to Steve's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and his violent outbursts. He was just kicked out of the latest in a long line of facilities for setting fire to the cafeteria, in turn injuring another boy. She made this decision to deinstitutionalize him as she didn't like the alternative, sending him into more restrictive juvenile detention from which he would probably never be rehabilitated. However, with this deinstitutionalization, she has to take care of him which means only being able to do home based work. Despite they always yelling expletives at each other and Steve sometimes demonstrating those violent tendencies toward her, Die and Steve truly do love each other, his emotions which are sometimes manifested as an Oedipus complex especially as he seems to need her complete attention most specifically when it is being directed at possible male suitors. Their lives, both individually and as a family, are affected with the entrance of two of their neighbors. The first is Paul, a lawyer, who does have that sexual interest in Die as he tries to help Steve through his legal problems. The second and more important is Kyla, who lives across the street with her husband Patrick and their adolescent daughter, they who are in transit in their life to wherever Patrick's job will take them. Kyla is a high school teacher on sabbatical as she deals with her own emotional issues, which are manifested in stuttering whenever she feels incapable of dealing with her life. Kyla may find that she needs the Després as much as they need her.

Awards: 43 wins & 55 nominations.
Runtime: 139 min
R