Jul 10: ‘Mommy’ pushes aside the clutter (and the frame) for a few breathers

Nobody shoots in square aspect ratios anymore. Well, some do. But it’s an understatement to say that widescreen has become the dominant format in cinema. So when directors shoot in 4:3 or 1:1, in the case of Mommy which gets a “Madison premiere” this Friday at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library, people tend to notice. There’s a lot to love in Xavier Dolan’s new film, and it all revolves around just how “square” it can be.

Things being with a crash. A middle-aged, single mother (Anne Dorval) props open her car door, defiant of the accident she’s been in — or the bleeding gash on the side of her head. Diane is constantly putting on a straight face, stiffening for a world that just can’t cut her a break and even with a dinged up car, Diane will need to keep her composure; she’s on her way to pick up her troubled son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon). Steve’s been kicked out of a juvenile detention facility for an “accident” that led to giving a kid third-degree burns. Upon his release, Steve embraces his mother with an overly affectionate, vaguely Oedipal adoration. It’s a far cry from the malicious delinquent his counselor makes him out to be, but it’s only until the ride home that we see why Steve was sent away in the first place. A disagreement over cab fare escalates into a traffic jam-shouting match between the driver and Steve, who springs onto the cab’s dashboard and starts spouting nasty epithets, and Diane can only try to hold her son back.

Because of its mother-son pairing, Mommy is filled with scuffles and arguments, where scenes hang on Steve’s temper flaring up at a moment’s notice. There’s a tension in the the crisp fall air, and Dolan fills his square frames with that tension. Emotions and objects clutter the mise-en-scene itself, condensing and cramping Diane’s new flat, still filled with knick-knacks and boxes of her deceased husband’s things. Diane’s life is a mess, now moreso than ever, and Mommy will chart her attempts to pick things up again when she befriends her shy neighbor, Kyla (Suzanne ClĂ©ment). In Kyla, Diane finds a ray of hope, a teacher-turned-housewife who can homeschool Steven while Diane tries to earn a living wage cleaning houses. Despite a speech impediment, the softspoken Kyla doesn’t take any bullshit from Steven. They come to share a mutual respect and eventually a friendship that pushes aside the clutter, sometimes literally.

Dolan’s frames feel claustrophobic but he toys with his aspect ratio, too, expanding contracted dimensions for dreamy sequences that swell the screen with joy and possibility — especially those scored to Ludovico Einaudi’s “Experience.” Yet not all of Mommy’s possibilities are within reach. More often that not, daydreams are just that, lone bright spots in a world where love feels good but isn’t always enough, especially when we glimpse what might have been hiding beneath the clutter.

  • Mommy plays FREE this Friday at 6:45p at the Alicia Ashman Library