Review: Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World)
Nathalie Baye. Vincent Cassel. Marion Cotillard. Léa Seydoux. Gaspard Ulliel. Writer-director-wunderkind Xavier Dolan has assembled quite the all-star cast for his dysfunctional family drama, Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World), but his adaptation of Jean-Luc Lagarce's play is a bit of a disappointment.
At the still tender age of 27, the Canadian director and former child actor has been a critical darling, festival circuit veteran, and divisive auteur for nearly a decade. Juste la fin du monde bears his trademark emotional and stylistic boldness, but the histrionics seem overbearing even by Dolan's standards. Most of the characters speak in a torrent of words, but genuine communication is resolutely futile. No one ever means offense or judgement or criticism, and yet they do offend and judge and criticise.
The film centers on the homecoming of prodigal son, Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), who has decided to return home after a 12-year-long absence in order to share the news of his terminal illness with his family. The reason for his initial departure is never made explicit - it might have been his homosexuality or his determination to pursue his dream of being a playwright, though the family seems accepting of both - but it is immediately clear that not only has he stepped back into the hornet's nest, but that he is the source of its disturbance.
His widowed mother Martine (Baye) is a hysterical hurricane, blowing in and out of the living room with appetizers and nonsensical comments. Younger sister Suzanne (Seydoux) is a tattooed pothead who admires his achievements even if she slightly resents his abandoning her. Mousy sister-in-law Catherine (Cotillard) stammers on about her children, constantly interrupted by her husband Antoine (Cassel), whose hostility is never far from boiling point. Louis attempts to find the right moment to tell them of his condition, but everyone is too busy verbally knifing each other to take notice. Even Catherine is not above using her meekness as a weapon when Louis confides that he hopes that Antoine is not turning her against him, he does know Antoine after all. Catherine quietly wonders if Louis even knows what Antoine does for a living or if he's aware that Antoine believes that Louis is completely disinterested in his life.
Dolan films his actors in a series of close-ups - their faces contorted in anger, frustration, pain, and conflict. The actresses get the worst of it if only because their shrieking isn't commensurate to the superficiality with which Dolan has written their characters. The tense relationship between Louis and Antoine is the genuine intrigue here, not only because it is more fleshed out than the dynamics between the other characters but also because both Ulliel and especially Cassel offer superbly contrasting performances. Ulliel's tenderness is moving but there's also an increasing feeling that Louis' mission is a selfish one, designed to re-open rather than heal old wounds. Antoine seems the lone figure able to confront rather than overlook past and present truths, and Cassel delivers a bracing and explosive portrayal that scorches.
Yet there's an emptiness to the melodrama that Dolan can't disguise with the Europop soundtrack and interesting visual flourishes (high-contrast lighting, mutating colours, shallow depth of field). Nevertheless, there is a relative restraint displayed here that indicates a maturity in Dolan that he can hopefully refine in future films.
Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World)
Directed by: Xavier Dolan
Written by: Xavier Dolan; based on the play by Jean-Luc Lagarce
Starring: Nathalie Baye, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Gaspard Ulliel
