Style doesn't best substance in 'Mommy'

<b>Mini-review: 'Mommy'</b>

You have never seen anything like "Mommy," a brash and bold domestic drama in which 25-year-old Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan rips the doors of conventional narrative off their hinges in pursuit of what Monty Python would call "something completely different."

In his fifth feature, Dolan constructs a riveting portrait of a mother-and-son couple dancing on the edge of financial and emotional catastrophe.

Dolan turns the very space of the film frame into a narrative device by adopting an unsettlingly narrow, 1:1 aspect ratio (think of those vertical photos on your telephone) to tell the story of a single mother Diana "Die" Despres (Anne Dorval) holding up under the strain of raising her unpredictably violent, 15-year-old ADHD son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), a confluence of bratty bravado and childlike neediness.

At a pivotal moment in "Mommy," a triumphant Steve declares his freedom while riding a skateboard, then physically pushes the sides of the film frame wider, wider, wider, until the movie opens into a glorious, liberated widescreen format.

It's audacious, jarring, pretentious and perfect. Gimmicky? Yes, but the style never suffocates the substance in this gritty, realistic examination of the kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions and tough decisions that all complex human beings experience daily.

"Mommy" rejects the usual categories of characters seen in most Hollywood features. That Dolan can observe and understand so much about relationships at 25 qualifies him for wunderkindhood. But then, he did mount "I Killed My Mother" as his feature debut.

Suzanne Clément also stars as Kyla, a new neighbor from across the street. Lonely and distanced from her son and husband for reasons we never fully know, she becomes an odd-woman-out in her increasingly devoted and complicated friendship with Die and Steve.

At two hours and 20 minutes, "Mommy" runs on way too long. Plus, its early on-screen announcement that a fictional Canadian law (S-14) allows parents to commit problem kids to the state telegraphs a key plot point.

These don't matter, for Dolan has created a work of cinema that bears the signature of an original and daring storyteller with the eyes, ears, heart and brain of a true innovator.

Not since the Coen brothers' "Blood Simple" has a movie confirmed a voice this fresh and visual.

"Mommy" opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. In French with subtitles. Rated R for language, sexual situations, violence. 140 minutes. ★ ★ ★ ★

<i> Dann Gire's Reel Life column runs Friday in Time out!</i>