I Killed My Mother

5.00
    I Killed My Mother
    2009

    Synopsis

    Hubert, a brash 17-year-old, is confused and torn by a love-hate relationship with his mother that consumes him more and more each day. After distressing ordeals and tragic episodes, Hubert will find his mother on the banks of Saint Lawrence river, where he grew up, and where a murder will be committed: the murder of childhood.

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    Cast

    • Xavier DolanHubert Minel
    • Anne DorvalChantale Lemming
    • François ArnaudAntonin Rimbaud
    • Suzanne ClémentJulie Cloutier
    • Patricia TulasneHélène Rimbaud
    • Niels SchneiderEric
    • Monique SpazianiDenise
    • Pierre ChagnonRichard Minel
    • Justin CaronYoung Hubert
    • Benoît GouinBoarding School Principal

    Recommendations

    • 91

      IndieWire

      Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother marks the emergence of an exciting new filmmaking talent. The Montreal actor, a mere 20 years old, displays a startlingly mature perspective on human behavior in his triple threat position as writer-director-star.
    • 90

      The New York Times

      As a director, Mr. Dolan has a freewheeling style, and he’s self-dramatizing enough to want to call attention to it without being too much of a visual show-off.
    • 88

      San Francisco Chronicle

      The director is barely a kid, yet this is such a ferociously accomplished, beautifully nuanced and endlessly surprising film, you'd think the guy had been directing for decades. [13 June 2010, p.Q25]
    • 75

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      Love sometimes hurts, but love/hate is always pure anguish. That's the two-stroke engine powering I Killed My Mother ( J'ai tué ma mère), a coming-of-age tale as ferociously raw as its teller - the very young Xavier Dolan.
    • 75

      Chicago Reader

      Anne Dorval gives an extraordinary performance as the mother, who lashes out at the boy but can't disguise her own suffering when he lands an emotional punch; their scenes together reminded me of Paul Schrader's Affliction for their sense of familial love gone hopelessly sour.
    • 70

      The Hollywood Reporter

      In the vein of Ma Vie en Rose (if not quite as polished and mature) and other gay adolescent coming-of-age films of comic rebellion, it's a congeries of brilliantly achieved cinematic moments and repetitive, massively self-indulgent gestures of acting out.
    • 70

      Variety

      There’s much to praise, especially the oh-so-real dialogue, but true psychological penetration is lacking and Dolan’s hunger to prove his talent results in a superfluity of styles. Still, multigenerational auds worldwide will likely find kinship with the many funny/painful situations, and pic is a genuine crowdpleaser.
    • 63

      Slant Magazine

      I Killed My Mother is a film best heard than seen, as the earnest, nimble scrubbiness of Dolan's screenplay is ill-served by his conceited visuals, an aesthetic mode that feels insecurely borrowed from perfume commercials and the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Wong Kar-Wai.

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