Tom à la ferme

I was one of the lucky people to see this movie tonight at the Dutch festival 'Roze Filmdagen' (Pink Film Days) in Amsterdam before it will hit the art-house cinemas here in april. It was the opening film and the festival director Werner Borkes made clear in his opening speech that he felt like a very lucky man to be able to show us this movie already. I must say, the expectations were high and growing and most of the time high expectations are hard to live up to. But not this time.

Canadian wonder child Xavier Dolan (born in '89) adapted the play by Michel Marc Bouchard, who co-wrote the script for the movie. Dolan is also playing the lead character Tom, who visits the family of his deceased lover for the funeral. The mother and homophobic brother live on a farm and when Tom tries to leave after the funeral, the brother doesn't let him. What follows is a psychological warfare between the characters and the big question is: will Tom be able to leave and does he want to…

The movie is tensed from beginning till the end and the music (with a lot of strings) is used well to accompany and strengthen the secluded and somewhat claustrophobic life on the farm. Besides the tension, there is also a lot of humor in the situations and dialog that seems to turn on a dime into an awkward situation for Tom. Especially the part where Tom is talking over dinner about the so-called girlfriend Sara with the mother, who doesn't have a clue what Tom's relationship with her son is, and the brother is a memorable scene. All the actors are great and deliver the lines from their toes.

Xavier Dolan is especially one to keep an eye on, this is already his third movie in his 24 years young life and he knows how to tell a great story the right way.

A young gay man from Montreal travels to rural Quebec to visit the family of his recently deceased partner and attend the funeral. The visit turns into a nightmare. The film is based on the play by Michel-Marc Bouchard who co-wrote the screenplay with director Xavier Dolan. Dolan also plays the main role.

Dolan uses powerful techniques to stir emotion in this bizarre thriller. He also gets great performances from the actors including himself.

The trouble is in trying to understand and empathize with the main character, Tom. He seems to have little or no survival instincts to take care of himself, sometimes even deliberately walking into further trouble.

This is made clear, maybe intentionally, in the second half of the film when Sarah, a friend from Montreal, enters the scene. Sarah at least shows the survival instincts clearly lacking in Tom. There are some hints as to why Tom stays in the dreadful situation but the inconsistencies in his actions cause too much confusion.

Dolan is a powerful artist with much promise at his young age. This was shown in "I Killed My Mother" and "Heartbeats". "Tom at the Farm" has potential but doesn't quite meet the level of the other two films. - dbamateurcritic.

This cinematic baby of director/writer/actor Xavier Dolan is a moderately successful suspense film that is prevented from being more successful by its desire to be strange and enigmatic rather than forthright about its intentions.

Dolan plays a young gay man who visits the family of his recently deceased lover to attend the funeral. There, he finds himself adored by the oblivious mother who didn't know her son was gay, and hated by the crazy, violent brother who hates that his sibling was gay and intends to keep that knowledge from his mother at all costs. This plays out mostly as you would expect, with an increasing sense of claustrophobic dread. Why Dolan's character doesn't just leave this potentially dangerous situation is adequately explained through various plot devices, some of them imposed on him by external circumstances, some of them arising from his own internalized motivations. Dolan gives a very good performance, but the actor who plays the abusive antagonist is poorly cast, not menacing or threatening enough to be convincing. And a late-act plot development involving a fake female love interest for the dead brother does more to derail the movie than heighten its suspense.

Still, those looking for an off-kilter watch will probably be satisfied. This movie reminded much in tone of last year's release "Strangers by the Lake," though that is a much better film than this one.

Grade: B+

This film succeeds in pulling off what "Stranger By The Lake" totally failed to do. The darkness draws you in and intrigues us, and the characters are brilliantly acted and engaging.

Some of the editing is slightly strange, or perhaps the narrative would be a better way to describe it, i.e. there are a couple of transitions between scenes where I found I was having to piece things together arbitrarily, in my opinion, meaning I had to concentrate hard. However I'd much rather this than everything being spelled out in children's building blocks as is the way with many American films.

This is one of the few "gay" films I've seen that had hardly anything superficial and stereotypical about it, and wasn't depressing to watch as a gay man.

Hats off to the guy who played the crazy brother: dark and scary, but the homoerotic tones and suppressed desires sound through his silence, creating a fascinating villain, again, something which the aforementioned other French-language gay thriller completely failed to do, managing only to be faintly embarrassing and ridiculous.

We distinctively perceive the characteristic atmosphere of Xavier Dolan's films: all the characters are on edge or even disturbed, and this dark and sensual film is made with a hyper sensitivity and a keen sense of photography.

First at all, Agathe is a mother who mourns her younger son died recently, and seems to understand the whole topic (undisclosed although you do not have to be a genius to intuit it) but represses her feelings and intuitions. Then Sarah a female blonde as hot as lost, and Francis, a farmer who is sexually attracted by Sarah (who would not be?) and hides himself behind a homophobic shell. Right in the middle of this bloody mess, Tom acts, contrary to appearances, like a temporary keystone, the whole microcosm gravitating around him. Although Tom is systematically delicate and cautious, especially with Agathe and even with Francis, in this farm, there is definitely a before and an after Tom, like a bull in a china shop, like a vault without its keystone.

A must see.