It's Only the End of the World
Directed by Xavier Dolan
- drama
The story
Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.
What it’s like
Claustrophobic close-ups dominate this film: faces pressed into frame, shallow focus, and saturated colour that flares in bursts of red, gold and sunset orange against the drab interiors of a family farmhouse. Dolan's camera lurches between rapid, feverish cutting and long held stares, while a score of pop and classical swells punctuates silences thick with unsaid things. The sensory world is heat, clutter, slammed doors and the hum of a kitchen where nobody quite sits still. Its vibe is tense, overheated melancholy, a fraught homecoming that plays like a stage drama shot in tight rooms. Dialogue is loud and overlapping, with small talk that keeps tripping into resentment, and the emotional arc follows a guarded man failing, then nearly managing, to say the one thing he came to say. Intensity is low on physical violence, but emotional cruelty, shouting and bitter confrontation run throughout; illness is present but never graphic. It suits a late-night, alone-with-the-feelings viewing, and is best for viewers who want intimate family drama with an arthouse, operatic edge.
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