Youngest director brings Cannes bold sex-change drama
(AFP) – 1 day ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hwN2LcoDcOEaZBo-9ot8r9Ox0jEw?docId=CNG.0d8e1a34f8eed2b6a7343577531cf5e3.6b1CANNES, France — The youngest director in the Cannes selection, 23-year-old Canadian Xavier Dolan wades into brave territory with "Laurence Anyways," about a man going through a sex change with his girlfriend's help.
On his 35th birthday, Laurence -- a popular high-school teacher played by French actor Melvil Poupaud -- drops a bombshell on his loving partner: for as long as he can remember he has felt like a woman trapped in a man's body.
First knocked sideways by shock, she decides to stand by his side, from the first time he steps out in make-up to a full-blown gender change, a powerful, painful journey that takes them all the way through the 1990s.
"It's a love story between a pair of misfit dreamers: you have two heroines, who show two very different forms of courage," Dolan told AFP in an interview.
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Cannes Review: Xavier Dolan's 'Laurence Anyways' Is A Spirited But Self-Indulgent Mess
Cannes Film Festival By Simon Gallagher on May 19, 2012
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/cannes-review-xavier-dolans-laurence-anyways-sgall.phpWhatever happened to brevity? Xavier Dolan's latest project – the transgender-infused romantic melodrama Laurence Anyways that was chosen as part of this year's secondary Un Certain Regard competition in Cannes – weighs in at a comfort-busting two hours and thirty nine minutes. That, in any context, is too long.
But, perhaps the plot might offer redemption, and make for an engrossing enough experience to make time less of an issue? It all appeared very promising – a decade spent in the company of Laurence (Melvil Poupaud), who makes the bold and brave decision to change his sex, and his girlfriend Frederique (Suzanne Clement) who must come to terms with exactly what that decision must mean. Over the ten years the pair refind each other as Laurence advances on his personal journey of discovery, making this sort of like When Harry Became Sally, if you're looking for a provocative, self-indulgent pop reference.
And it is no accident that I include those words, because Dolan's follow-up to the bright promise of Heartbeats is a provocative, self-indulgent mess, littered with 1980s pop references (even, curiously when the narrative advances well into the middle of the '90s) and showing open disdain for both character performances and storyline thanks to the director's inability to control his wayward artistic impulses.
