How can a film with Marion Cottillard, Vincent Cassel, and Léa Seydoux be so nail-gratingly annoying?

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wanted to scream. And not in a good way. Gaspard Ulliel plays Louis, a successful write who returns home after 12 years offing away with almost no communication, to tell his family that he has a terminal illness. The film is about how his absence, and the family's imagining of him, has affected all of their lives. What it amounts to is an hour and a half of angst and bitterness, whining and hesitation. Ugh.

Louis' older brother (Cassel) refusing to feel any joy lest his anger dissipate. His younger sister (Seydoux) has imagined a dream version of Louis she both idolises and resents. His sister-in-law (Cotillard) is the most sympathetic but even she is mistrustful of Louis' return. Rounding out the cast is Nathalie Baye as the family matriarch who turns to Louis to cure the curdled bonds within the family.

What grates is the lack of insight into what it was that has caused Louis to leave for so long. The brief flash-back glimpses we get of his pre-leaving-home life seem happy enough, and the horror-show that is his family now has been caused by his absence. There's something to be explored here about what we owe our family, about the balance we have to strike between honouring the familial bonds, and look gin after ourselves, about needing to get away from toxic situations even if you love the people you leave behind, but the film is not interested in any of that - it wants only to wallow in how horrific the homecoming is. We learn nothing of why Louis is so desperate to stay away; so desperate in fact that he has done nothing more than send postcards with 2 or 3 words on them for years, so desperate that he does not want his mother to know his address. We can throw out guesses; his homosexuality? His artistic temperament? But the film won't so much as glance in that direction. Home is toxic; that's all it wants you to know.

The main character is so blank as to be without a character. He is silent for much of the film. Many scenes are shot largely in close-up, rendering everything claustrophobic, but Louis does no more than look sick, and give a wan smile. An early exchange of looks between Cotillard and Ulliel gave me hope there was some understanding between them that would yield some insight or drama, but nothing.

Cassel is asked only to be angry throughout. Seydoux only anxious. Cottilard only nervous. Baye, at least, is asked to do a little more; but even she seems to see her son only as a way to fix her other 2 children.

Perhaps there is something to be gleaned here for those whose home life is truly toxic, perhaps this functions as a sort of acknowledgement that sometimes you shouldn't go home again, but for me, this was a grind.

This was the first film I have seen written and directed by Xavier Dolan. I would never write anyone off (there's always hope!),but it may be some time before I venture into Dolan's house again.

I read Jean-Luc Lagarce's play "Juste la fin du monde" a while back and it didn't really make an impression on me. So I was quite intrigued and just a tiny bit worried when I learned that Xavier Dolan, possibly my favorite contemporary film director, was adapting this to me impenetrable text into a movie.

I had confidence in Dolan's genius and was rewarded beyond expectations. The film is as magnificent as anything Dolan has created before. He has said in interviews that at first reading Lagarce's language- also off-putting for me- didn't impress him but that he discovered its power on second random reading. I'm grateful he did and that he has now shared this discovery with his audience with the aid of some truly superb acting performances.

The very first scene establishes everything with narration by protagonist Louis (Gaspard Ulliel),a successful author who is flying to see his family for the first time in over a decade. Louis is dying. Dolan hides Ulliel's face with shadowy lightning and a cap as well as utilizes close-ups so extreme you can't get a proper feel of a face. The close focus continues in the following scenes of Louis's family, only to very gradually move away as the film progresses.

Greeting Louis are his extravagant mother Martine (Nathalie Baye),his coolly detached younger sister Suzanne (Léa Seydoux),his dominant yet socially awkward older brother Antoine (Vincent Cassel) as well as Antoine's shy, even more socially awkward wife Catherine (Marion Cotillard).

Dolan tends to depict extreme personal conflict in his work, uniting his fiercely dramatic, richly colored and always unique visuals with raw scripts that seem to channel Ingmar Bergman's best work. This also occurs in "Juste la fin du monde".

If you looked at the movie without sound you could mistake it for a regular- if exceptionally well shot and acted- drama about a family uniting with the result of old wounds and conflicts emerging and taking over the scenes. This is indeed what basically happens here, but the dialog, to me so difficult to digest from the pages of a book, makes it all about what is left unsaid. Because even as extreme emotion takes over the characters and bursts out they still can't communicate with each other. Lines that one would expect to convey full, sincere, angry honesty are expressed through awkward, even incomprehensible dialog that only hints at the apparently troubled history of these people.

Louis, as mellow and conciliatory as he acts, seems to be a dangerous catalyst for his family, an antigen they all defend their nest against. This is endlessly fascinating and sold so well by the actors, each and every one of them marvelous. The title becomes darkly ironic, as Louis soon seems to find his impending death a minor problem in his severely dysfunctional family. He connects with Catherine, another outsider and someone who he hasn't met before this one day during which the whole film occurs. "How much time?" Catherine asks Louis, a question that together with the offhand mention of Louis's first boyfriend having passed away from "cancer" establishes the fatal backdrop of the AIDS epidemic.

At first glance "Juste la fin du monde" might seem like a melodramatic shouting match that emerges unfocused and aimless, but I ultimately find it urgently compelling and even insightful through its sustained aversion to a genuine unmasking of characters.

Lagarce wrote the original play in 1990, reportedly to examine his own mortality. He was dying himself at that time and finally succumbed to AIDS in 1994. There is a touching dimension to the script's nightmarish reunion as we sense Louis's need to come full circle, to rediscover his childhood and adolescence, even to assure himself that his already estranged family can survive after he's gone. Death is ever present, and instead of trivializing the personal conflicts it elevates them, because they are if nothing else moments of vitality for people not truly living.

"Juste la fin du monde" or "It's Only the End of the World" is a co-production between France and Canada in the French language. The director here is Canadian filmmaking prodigy Xavier Dolan and it is his newest work. it is probably also the film with the most big names in the cast by him, such as Oscar winner Cotillard, Bond girl Seydoux and Ulliel, Cassel and Baye also have their fare share of Hollywood productions in their bodies of work already. So it is maybe a bit surprising that this film was not received as well as most of Dolan's other works. Or maybe it is not because it frequently doesn't work out when it actually should. Then again, I myself enjoyed these slightly over 90 minutes for the most part. It is the story of what happens when a terminally ill young man comes back to his family and has the intention to tell them about his disease. However, they are more than busy with their very own struggles and conflicts they have with themselves and each other.

I personally really like Cassel, Seydoux and Cotillard, so I was looking forward to this film. Given my personal bias there, it's probably a bit underwhelming that I would say it was just a good movie. Baye was fine too, but Ulliel didn't do too much for me. The only scene/moment I quite liked with him is when we see him wink at his brother in the "Dragostea din tei" scene. This is also somewhat only scene when the family is in something that can be considered close to a state of harmony and I think this was among the best scenes of the entire movie. It was nice to see the two characters dance so enthusiastically and carelessly before it all went back to drama and destroyed idyll afterward very quickly. I also liked the flashback scene there, certainly more than the one later. The best friend story line, also with the death, felt a bit rushed in and it did not have any real emotional impact as a consequence in my opinion. Cassel probably gives the loudest performance of the movie, but I think he was a good choice for the character. Cotillard gives the most quiet performance and she was convincing too.

I think some people may have a problem with this movie because it is really almost always the same from start to finish. The scenes with all five together always result in arguments, tears and screaming and the big final scene is no exception to that and it includes really nothing too different that what we saw before. But to me it wasn't a problem at all, not just because I like the actors, but also because it felt pretty authentic. The tension rises, but why would entirely new things happen. I also think it felt accurate that the protagonist kept silent eventually about his illness. Favorite performance is difficult for me to pick as I really liked everybody except Ulliel. However, I must say that Léa Seydoux looks so stunning right now and is still so extremely desirable, even if she plays a pretty wrecked character. The tattoos sure help matters as well, also due to personal preference. Shame the camera became blurry when she is topless. What a waste. I personally would say that the core plot theme about one character dying also could have left out and it really would not have made too much of a difference, at least for me. Maybe people who won't like the cast as much as I do will not enjoy this one as much, but I think those who like at least one cast member a lot here should check this one out. Finally, the Moby song at the end is a good song, but it did not work half as well in the context like the aforementioned "Dragostea din tei". Overall, the good outweighs the bad and this film is worth watching, especially for the really tense final conflict scene. Another strong addition to Dolan's body of work. And I also like films like this one here where the focus is on not too many characters and where there are no forgettable supporting characters. The awards attention may have been slightly too much though, especially at Cannes.