Sydney Film Festival 2016 - Film Review - It's Only the End of the World

Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel - It's Only the End of the World

It's Only the End of the World directed  by Xavier Dolan (with the screenplay also written by him) won the Grand Prix and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Why ?

This is a mess of a film which, in large part, is due to the director's interpretation (or lack thereof) of a stage play by the late Lean-Luc Lagarce.  Perhaps the relative youthful age of 27 for Dolan might have some influence on how he approached the film and the dialogue of the main characters.

The storyline follows the return of successful writer, Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) to his hometown and family as he is dying from AIDS. He has been absent for 12 years and his trip is to announce his impending demise. No sooner has he materialised then, despite warm welomes, the family descends into endless arguments between his mother (Nathalie Baye), sister Suzanne (Lea Seydoux), brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel) and sister-in-law Catherine (Marion Cotillard). Louis actually never makes his announcement but spends his time in dreamy recollections of past events.

As one reviewer in Vanity Fair commented, the film is overcome by pretention and the few good sequences arrive 'amidst a hideous clamor of pointless yelling and shoddy character work' A superb French cast was wasted with either no viable dialogue  or endless shouting. Marion Cottilard is left as the mumbling, stammering sister-in law and Vincent Cassel spends almost the entire film being bellicose and bullying everyone else.

The film will be released in France and Canada in September 2016.