Mommy – A HopeLess Film

We take a risk with the DCA – usually the films are good, occasionally brilliant, and infrequently, bad.

Last week we went to see this film

It should have everything going for it.  Good actors, an interesting theme (how to cope with an extreme ADHD teenager) and a director ,Xavier Dolan, with a superb reputation. And it is French.  I hated it.  In fact its one of those few films that I wanted to get up and walk out of.  Why?  It was not so much the extreme use of bad language, which wasn’t so much offensive, as ugly and actually quite boring (even if it was in French).  It wasn’t the very predictable storyline, such as it was.  The cinematography was ok.  But my problem was simply this – the message was so profoundly depressing.  This was Sartre and Camus without the art, questions and humour!  In fact it made them look positively cheerful.  This is the kind of film that makes you think, if this is the human race, then I want out!   Any hope offered was shallow and empty.  Never mind existential angst, this was beyond.   So personally I would say don’t waste your time and money.  Read Sartre.  Read Camus.  And then read Pauls letters to the Colossians and Phillippians, and thank the Lord that in Christ, there really is hope.