It's Only the End of the World

Dir: Xavier Dolan

Canada / France

2016

97 mins

15

Canadian enfant terrible Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World – winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes (and the Ecumenical Jury Prize) – boasts a fantastic ensemble cast, evidencing a growing casting clout after the success of his superlative 2014 melodrama, Mommy.

Gaspard Ulliel plays Louis, a writer; Nathalie Baye his whimsical mother; Léa Seydoux his sullen, punky sister; Vincent Cassel his volatile brother Antoine and Marion Cotillard, Antoine’s diminutive wife Catherine.

The story is adapted from a stage play by Jean-Luc Lagarde, and follows Louis as he returns to the troubled family home with an awful secret to share. Their reunion is something like a volcanic eruption, as Dolan exploits (much as he did in Mommy) the dramatic power and claustrophobic nature of dysfunctional familial love, and the difficulty – perhaps, impossibility – of maintaining such toxic relationships.

It’s a histrionic story, and one which feels at times like an assault on the audience – but which is played with such conviction, and styled with such an emphatic sense of drama by Dolan that it is effortlessly cinematic, and sweeps you away.

Booking Information

Distributor

Curzon Film

Telephone:
020 7240 5353

Email:
james.king@curzon.com

Release Date

24 February 2017

Blu-ray / DVD Bookings

BFI

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