Suzanne Clément

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) Amazingly enough for a self-professed Canadian cinephile, I had managed to avoid watching any of wunderkind Xavier Dolan’s movies until now. Fortunately, here are CanCon requirements flying to the rescue, with a national movie cable channel broadcasting no less than five of his films for Canada Day. First up, one of his earliest: Laurence Anyways, arguably his critical breakthrough. From the evidence presented by that film, it’s easy to see what the fuss about Dolan is about: a difficult topic treated with panache and sensitivity, as a transgender woman has romantic issues with a longtime partner after her transition. The director’s work is made obvious through flourishes such as extended montages set to blunt-force pop music, slow-motion shots and clear shifts in tone and rhythm—it’s showy work, but it clearly shows fluency with the tools of the trade. The actors do good work (especially Melvil Poupaud, in a dual-gender role, and Suzanne Clément as the long-suffering girlfriend) and the result clearly exceeded my moderate expectations considering the film’s intimate, non-genre premise. The quebecicity of the film is zigzagged through the protagonist’s mid-Atlantic accent. Still, despite my overall good impression of the result, Laurence Anyways can sometimes be a bit too much, as the two-plus-hour running time isn’t fully deserved—simply avoiding the slow motion would significantly improve the film’s running time.