9/10
I saw this a while ago but just now got around to reviewing it for whatever reason. I didn't know much about the plot going in. When a pre-movie message appeared on screen positing the events as occurring in some kind of medically dystopian Canada in the future, I got really apprehensive, wondering what the hell Xavier Dolan was up to. In the end I needn't have worried because this little plot device only surfaces (expectedly) at the end and isn't the movie's central concern by any means, so it's easy to forget about.
As with all other Dolan movies, the strength is 2 or 3 (3 in this case) really great central performances - yes turned up to 11 sometimes and yes with a heaping of melodrama but Dolan has always been very unabashed about being melodramatic and I find it an admirable quality, much the way he unabashedly (and unironically) uses 90's pop staples throughout the film's soundtrack.
The movie is extremely taut, with moments of humor interrupted suddenly by moments of terror or violence interrupted suddenly by moments of sadness (one montage is particularly crushing). Dolan, as always, directs with a lot of panache and flourish, yet he still somehow manages to avoid repeating or parodying himself. Just a remarkable filmmaker who unfathomably churns out great movies almost as naturally as the rest of us walk and talk. Eventually, one assumes, he's going to step outside the cozy confines of Quebec films, either when Hollywood inevitably comes calling or to challenge himself artistically, and I'm really interested to see what he comes up with then.
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