Direction: Xavier Dolan
Country: Canada
Xavier Dolan returns to his native Quebec, but his topic didn’t change. Complex relationships between friends and family continue to be his menu, only his latest dish, Matthew & Maxime, isn’t so nutritious as other gourmet presentations such as Mommy (2014) and I Killed My Mother (2009).
The film, his eighth, follows two childhood friends - portrayed by Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas and himself - who after years of camaraderie and sexual repression realize they love each other. Dolan should have invested in something more mature here. His writing is weak and the general performances unremarkable. Another recurrent theme is the problematic mother-son relationship, which also doesn’t have the force of other times.
This uninspired, disjointed gay romance gets torpidly stuck in the frivolous details and characters that surround it. Real passion never emerges as Dolan keeps battling with tone, probing everything without adhering to the right one. The insipidity further escalates with the shabby, cosmetic finale, and the result is a pretentious, silly bore that never rises above mediocre status.
