I KILLED MY MOTHER (J'ai tué ma mère)

Directed by Xavier Dolan
Canada 2009
running time 96'

A funny and bitter autobiographical pic about the difficult relationship between a mother and a son, written and directed by a self-taught 20-year-old, who also plays the lead.

Cast: Anne Dorval (Chantale), Xavier Dolan (Hubert Minel), François Arnaud (Antonin), Suzanne Clément (Julie), Patricia Tulasne (Helene), Niels Schneider, Monique Spaziani, Pierre Chagnon, Emile Mailhot, Pascale Audrey

16-year-old Hubert simply despises his mother Chantale. He haughtily regards her with contempt, and only sees her tacky sweaters, kitsch decorations and the breadcrumbs that get stuck in the corner of her lips when she munches. He hates her obsession with suntan and her nasty habit of not really listening to him. In addition to these irritating surface details, there are also his parent's cherished mechanisms of manipulation and guilt. But Hubert also obstinately refuses to speak about his private matters. Would Chantale ever realise her son was gay, had not she been inadvertently informed by the mother of his boyfriend. Hubert drifts through the mysteries of adolescence both marginal and typical, when mother decides to put him in a boarding school.

“The film is not just about raging hormones and adolescent immaturity. It deals primarily with incompatibility. Incompatibility has always existed between these two persons. It deals with the resigned acceptance of a role, playing the game, politely doing things which you cannot do passionately. The boy realizes that his mother will remain his mother all of his life. He resigns himself to the role of the son, but does not embrace it wholeheartedly.” (Xavier Dolan)

Xavier Dolan
Born in 1989 in Montreal, Canada. At the age of four he began acting in commercials and later in feature-length films and TV series. His directorial debut, I Killed My Mother, which he also wrote and stars in, earned three prizes in the 2009 Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.