Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

sol- Coming out as a transsexual proves challenging for a high school teacher in this French Canadian drama directed by Xavier Dolan and starring Melvil Poupaud. He undergoes predictable trouble at work (though curiously from his colleagues - not his pupils who respect his courage) and ends up losing his job. His parents also expectedly reject him and he has trouble dining in public without someone making some comment about his looks. Not so expected though is Poupaud's long term girlfriend's decision to stick with him throughout his ordeal, and Suzanne Clément is superb as the young lady in question who, despite all doubts, claims to still need his "forearms". Set over a ten year period, the couple's relationship is tested at several points but their connection is absolutely undeniable and there is a potent scene in which they encounter another trans couple who claim that "gender is shallow" and it is "the person" who matters. Truer relationship advice may have never been said, but it is to the film's credit that it is does everything to challenge this, highlighting how difficult is for one to achieve happiness in a world full of societal expectations and heavily drilled norms. At nearly three hours long, the film runs a little long and is never quite as intense at it could be. The extra runtime allows Dolan to experiment with some neat stylistically touches though as things fall on the actors in slow motion to the tune of serene music. This in turn gives the film a dreamlike quality - rather fitting for a film about a human being realising his/her dreams beyond gender stereotyping.

lasttimeisaw It is Canadian prodigy Xavier Dolan's third feature, after I KILLED MY MOTHER (2009, 7/10) and HEARTBEATS (2010, 5/10), the first one he doesn't hog a leading role for himself. LAURENCE ANYWAYS chronicles a 10 year up-and-down relationship between Laurence Alia (Poupaud), a man with GID (Gender Identity Disorder) and determines to dress up like a woman, and his girlfriend Fred Belair (Clément) from 1989 to the looming millennium. Scale wise it is Dolan's boldest and most ambitious one (save his two subsequent films TOM AT THE FARM 2013 and MOMMY 2014, which I haven't seen yet), extending around 168 minutes, Dolan strenuously spells out a panorama of struggles of Laurence and Fred, for the former, it is a life-or-death judgement call, without opening up to embrace his true id, life is pointless and meaningless to him; more thoughtfully and unconventionally, the film generously grants maximum space for the latter, to zoom in on Fred's striving for breath and co-existence when her world is equally capsized by the blunt decision made by the man she loves. As early as the opening introduction of Laurence through onlookers (deceitfully) spontaneous responses till the very end, Laurence and Fred separately exit the barroom with posh slo-motion against the brisk gust, stylistically Dolan comes much more at ease with his ostentatious aesthetic codes, Day-Glo disco, subdued lighting, kitschy ornamentation, pop art, avant-garde tableaux vivant, chic party, campy or crammed locale confinement, highlighted by Les Five Roses, and all aided by a killing mixtape (from Fever Ray, The Cure, Visage to Moderat) to leaven the zeitgeist and propel the storytelling.It is a pure melodrama, spearheaded by two impressive leading performances by Poupaud and Clément, especially the latter, her explosion which bookends the midway of this drawn-out feature is intensely electrifying and utterly breathtaking. She also impeccably handles the unvoiced implosion of her character, shepherded by hairstylists, costume designers and Dolan's unerring determination to lay bare all the subtlety with abstract symbolism and his own perceptive sensations. Most of the time, Poupaud conceals his handsome contour under a ridiculous wig, heavy make- up doesn't help either, but nothing can hide Laurence's intrepidity, sensitivity and charm through his less flamboyant but more realistic rendition. Nathalie Baye, plays Laurence's negligent mother, pungently bespeaks both parenting and gender-identity are not innately fitting to anyone. LAURENCE ANYWAYS is a solid corroboration of Dolan's prowess to explore and conquer a wider scope out of his comfort zone, visually distinct and artistically eclectic, although in any event he needs to be polished up a little bit and get himself out of the self-indulgent pitfall, let me just suppress a dash of jealousy and get ready to rejoice in the wunderkind's another output, hopefully is the much-anticipated TOM AT THE FARM.

Erica Zander First of all: This is Suzanne Clement's film! As far as I know I have never before seen this amazing actress, who turned out to be the gem in this actually quite uneven movie. It's her I remember, and her I tell my friends about.Being a transsexual woman myself – and author of the acclaimed book "TransActions" - I was curious to see how Xavier Dolan had managed to turn this delicate subject matter into a praised movie – not least since my transsexualism was what eventually caused the breakup from my wife of almost thirty-five years. Undeniably it's a very good movie, and Laurence's pain and anguish brought back memories I could have done without – but there are angles I don't understand.Having been in & out of the trans world since 1971 I have met numerous transvestites and transsexuals - and I have yet to see a man trying to pose as a woman with his usual male hair-cut; Make-up, a skirt, women's shoes – and male hair. Also – to suddenly go to work as a woman, without having told neither his colleagues nor his totally unprepared pupils. How smart is that? No wonder it didn't really work out.A couple of the other reviewers mentioned the fact that handsome Melvil Poupaud turned into a not all that convincing woman. At first it bothered me as well, but with this being quite a common situation among transsexuals it actually added a realistic touch to the film. Regrettably this was effectively ruined when a woman interviewer with obvious warmth compliments Laurence on what a beautiful woman he is."He"? I guess this is my most substantial objection: Poupaud never managed to convince me that Laurence really is a woman. This is not a matter of looks but something you project, and I have met much more masculine looking trans women who are readily accepted as females at work and in society because this is what they "feel" like.An amazing example of such projection in a movie is Felicity Huffman's stunning performance as male to female Bree, in Duncan Tucker's Transamerica. Even beautifully dressed as woman, she manages to convince me that behind the clothes she's still biologically a man.Regrettably I have also met transsexual women like Laurence, who never really stop behaving like men - and who demand to be accepted and loved without even a trace of understanding for the feelings of those around them. My lasting impression is that this might actually be what the film's title hints at.PS Don't you ever forget: Suzanne Clement is altogether lovely as Laurence's girlfriend Fred!

blinckx Having completed his third feature, it's safe to say that Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is slowly working his way into the elite circle of auteur cinema. His feature debut, "J'ai tué ma mère" might have been a tad too 'art pour l'art' for it's own good, but that was something that was easily discarded given the fact that we were dealing with a young filmmaker who was most likely sending a personal and poignant story into the world. "Les Amours Imaginaires", on the other hand, was quirky and lush, its story universal, but personally missed a cult status due to a lack of character complexion underneath its glossy images and style. "Laurence Anyways", Dolan's newest effort, suffers from all the shortcomings of his previous films.Film is the art of showing, not telling. The imagery of Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) sitting in front of his literature class in a sweat, looking envious at his female pupils while wearing paper clips as nail extensions, says it all. This man is not comfortable in his body, he realizes he's been living a lie for all these years and that his true nature lies in the transformation of his body to a woman's body. Two problems: we're in the late 80's, where trans-genders are still regarded as psychotic patients, and last but not least, girlfriend and love-of-his-life Fred (Suzanne Clément) who - upon hearing the news - concludes that "everything she loves about him, he hates about himself". It's a nice quote, would it not be that, like so many other lines in the film, it's a tad too explicit and overly dramatic.Therein lies the core problem of Dolan's newest effort: the subtleties of his two previous - smaller - films have suddenly evaporated when being confronted to the enormity of this project (Did he really think that butterfly escaping Laurence's mouth would dazzle anyone? Have some respect for your audience!). And that is a real shame, given that this is the kind of challenging love story we rarely get to see on screen. The first issue arises with the narrative frame Dolan uses for the movie: Did we really need the journalist as a narrative hook? This story-line barely brings new information to the film, and her character is as cliché as playing 'Fade to Grey' to a 90's party. The inclusion of a group of hags is what bothered me the most. Both in style as in writing, these scenes did not seem to fit the story at all. Why go for explicit kitsch when you have such a gorgeous and pure, yet unconventional, love story at hand?If his writing might be too vain, his directing has become less focused. Although I'm the first to appreciate a different aspect ratio, Dolan's choice (which seems to lie somewhere in between 3:4 and 1.37:1) is not backed up by his director of photography. If a director decides to crop the image for the viewer, why crop it in the imagery again? And the static or traveling tableaux which made his previous films so different have now been replaced by a lot of camera-on-shoulder shots with its distracting movements (and very bad focus pulling, I must say), almost similar to the heydays of Dogme. Unfortunately for him, Dolan is not a Dogme-editor.Which leads me to the biggest problem of "Laurence Anyways": why not kill your darlings, Xavier? As an auteur, who wrote and directed this film, it might not be the best choice to edit the film yourself. Because of this, Dolan comes of as an eager film student, wanting the audience to appreciate his every artistic outburst and wit. This works for about an hour or so, but there's also a limit to the amount of aesthetic slow-motions, jump-cuts and zoom-ins you subject your audience to. I'm such a big fan of breaking the narrative for more an exuberant cinematic approach (when Fred enters the party, for example), but restraint is an art form that Xavier Dolan has not even heard of yet. It was forgivable for a feature debut, but when you're up to your third feature length film, some restraint is expected of you. While I am certain that an editor might have been able to cut this film from its 2 hours and 40 minutes length to under two hours (as previously mentioned, getting rid of some distracting subplots) the ultimate story would have been better balanced and come out stronger. As it is now, I found myself slipping in and out of the film, this long journey did not seem to be worth the trouble.And yet, ironically, it is worth the trouble. The movie goes into an emotional roller coaster in the last thirty minutes (Moderat's "A new error" might have something to do with my sudden peak of interest) where one can't help but empathize with these two flawed characters, stuck in a cruel world (and a weird aspect ratio). Poupaud acts as expected, but it's Clément that steals the show. Although her performance isn't always spellbinding - due to a myriad of problems, aforementioned as well as unmentioned due to spoilers - she does, however, shine at each emotional turning point, making her both the protagonist and star of the film. Nathalie Baye and Chokri give good supportive performances, although, sadly, their characters don't get enough screen-time (we meet again, sweet irony) to stand out.So, would I recommend "Laurence Anyways"? Depending on who you are. Those having not seen a Dolan-film yet might want to start with his shorter, more compact films that hit the mark slightly better than this one. But those who have loved his first two movies - like me - should definitely give this one a try, given that it might be the most grown-up story he has told so far, but unfortunately, also his most flawed.I did, however, love Dolan's cameo.