Review of Tom at the Farm (2014) by Jim S — 08 Oct 2015

Xavier Dolan, enfant terrible of Québecois filmmaking has done a great service for the French-Canadian film industry, breathing life and showing movies about French-Candians in French Canada can be moneymakers. Showing us Americans about "Novelle-France" for which we are mostly ignorant about.

With that said, I enjoyed Dolan stretching his wings and trying something out of his comfort zone (typical Dolan is "I killed my mother", "Heartbeats", "Laurence Anyways"). Off the bat, we get Dolan's satire on love. He is writing a typical lovesick poem on a napkin but unexpectedly finishes with "There is nothing left to do put replace you". If that isn't shocking enough of a start to a movie, we have Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) Guillaume's older brother who's not only physically and mentally abusive to Tom (Dolan) but there is a kind of twisted sexual energy played aptly by both actors. Agathe (Lise Roy) is also a dreamy, mentally unstable mother who becomes the go-between of both Francis and Tom. The dénouement sends the viewer into a state of shock when "Sarah" (Evelyne Brochu) tells the truth about his soulmate Guillaume, making one ask oneself, Was the napkin note written before or after the events of the film?

All in all, I enjoyed his almost Nouvelle-Vagues to the film. The remaining accredited spoken roles ( Manuel Tadros, Anne Caron & Jaques Lavallée) are perfect in showing the vignette of small-town, rural Québec life.