I don’t know why I expected anything other than pretentious melodrama from Xavier Dolan, but in any case when I went to see Juste la fin du monde (It’s Only the End of the World) last night at my friendly local art-house cinema, I had higher hopes. Maybe it’s because I happen to know this movie is Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars this year - and we all remember how good Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies was. I also still have fondness for Dolan’s Mommy. Unfortunately this movie is not nearly as polished and mature as either of those movies.

It’s like half of a pretty good movie. I would say the first half is very solid, as you learn that a playwright with a terminal disease (played by Gaspard Ulliel, who is disappointingly passive in this film most of the time for a character with such a fascinating backstory) is going to return home to visit his mother and two siblings for the first time after a 12-year absence. (That is not a spoiler because his character, Louis, reveals all of that in the very first scene.) The mother is played by Nathalie Baye, and the siblings (one older, one younger) are played by Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux respectively. Marion Cotillard rounds out the main cast as the adorkably awkward wife of Cassel’s character. It’s a very stacked cast for anyone even vaguely familiar with the great acting talent that France has churned out in the last decade or so, and it was certainly a big draw for me to see this movie.

The first half revolves mainly around Louis getting to know his various family members again, and I say that it’s solid because these little vignettes are where the movie seems to have the strongest footing. For instance, the title sequence leads into a sequence where Louis’ journey home in a cab through various picturesque French countryside vistas is intercut with scenes of his mother (who is never named - she is credited only as “La Mere” too) preparing plates of cold cuts and vegetables and selecting just the right shade of nail polish to beautify herself. Seydoux has a similarly character-establishing scene as the baby sister of the family, Suzanne, when she smokes like three joints in front of Louis and goes on an almost stream-of-consciousness monologue about feeling out of place and vaguely depressed in their backwater French town. Louis talks to and watches them all and inwardly seems to be comparing them to his own old impressions of them.

The best performance, by far, belongs to Cotillard, playing Catherine who is married to Cassel’s Antoine. One forgets sometimes how amazing she is in her native language after watching many a stilted English performance from her, but she’s great here. Catherine is by far the most understated character of the five leads and it definitely works in her favour, as Cotillard with her stuttering speech trip-ups and luminously large eyes is magnetic to watch and infinitely likeable. Her first extended scene involves her telling Louis about her children and her barely contained enthusiasm is contagious and brought a smile to my face (as did most of her scenes). If you’ve only seen Cotillard in those Nolan movies where she plays a slinky femme fatale then you definitely need to check out her work here or in Two Days, One Night where she similarly plays against type.

By the midpoint of the film I was not convinced it was an amazing film but it seemed like a pretty decent one, definitely boosted by its acting talent. Now is probably as good a time as any to mention that this film is based on a play of the same name by Jean-Luc Lagarce. I have no idea whether Dolan (who also wrote and edited this) adapted that play faithfully but I suspect he did as it is painfully obvious that some of these scenes were written for the stage. What works extremely well in a stage play - extended monologues, melodramatic scenes involving all five characters - does not translate well onto the screen and someone should have told Dolan this.

The primary catalyst for the aforementioned melodrama is almost always Antoine and Vincent Cassel has the pretty thankless job IMO of being a complete asshole for no real reason other than the film seems to dictate we need another scene to prove the family is dysfunctional. Cassel playing an asshole is nothing new but at least his characters with nefarious slants usually have at least charisma or some other “redeeming” factor, but here the inciteful scenes involving his character serve little purpose than to make this film an episode of Days Of Our Lives. He also has a monologue, one that occurs while he is driving Louis to go buy cigarettes, and it’s several minutes long with little camera movement and little actual substance and nearly made me fall asleep. I’m not proud to admit that because I always try to give movies, no matter how awful, my full attention but it’s hard when you are basically looking at the backs of two men’s heads and a car windshield.

And for all the interesting threads that the film tempts the audience with in the first half - why did Louis not see his family in 12 years? what is the terminal disease he is afflicted with? why are Suzanne and Antoine so antagonistic towards each other? why is the father absent (or dead)? - almost none of these are addressed, much less resolved. There’s a very music video-like flashback sequence in which Louis remembers a lover from his youth and their time together which I was convinced would come back to be a major plot point by the end of the film, given the film’s affinity for contrasting figures from your past with their current selves, but it is never mentioned again save for a throwaway line by Antoine. The final scene, which is rather strangely lit (the entire room is bathed in a golden glow), contains much sobbing and angry shouting but again very little resolution of anything.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time (see my post on Coin Heist if you want to hear me talk about a complete waste of time), but I was highly unsatisfied with the conclusion and a little disappointed given the acting talent that some characters (namely the very gifted Seydoux) were reduced to reactionary crying machines by the end. One gets the sense based on the story and Dolan’s overuse of extreme closeup (nearly every shot is a giant closeup on someone’s face, and heads often take up 70% of the frame) that he might have gotten a bit overindulgent with this one. It’s a real shame because a one-room family drama such as this one is the last sort of scenario that can afford to be overindulgent.