Ten years ago, things were very different to how they are now for Laurence Alia (Melvil Poupaud), though one aspect remained a constant: his love for Frederique Belair (Suzanne Clément), known to her friends as Fred. Back then, he had a job as a teacher of English in a Montreal school and was very happy there, with his relationship never better with Fred who was making inroads into the directing industry as she had begun crafting television commercials. But he was about to drop a bombshell, not only on her but on everyone around him; he had a secret, one which, as he was now thirty-five years old, he had to finally come out and admit. Laurence did not feel like a man at all...
This was another film from French-Canadian boy wonder Xavier Dolan, who by the stage this was released was making waves and a name for himself in international and cult circles for his particular way with offbeat drama. On the surface, they didn't come much more offbeat than this, a nearly three hour long romance between a transsexual and his/her girlfriend which would apparently be doomed from the second Laurence told her that he was not gay exactly, but he did wish from now on to live his life as a woman. Understandably, Fred is somewhat taken aback by this revelation, and the ripple effect that the big reveal one secret can have was the focus of the melodrama.
All very well, and it was pleasing to see a romance play out that was far from typical, acknowledging that for some people their romantic lives are never going to be anything so much as everyday and able to be slotted into a pigeonhole, but there was a problem with this that no matter how well acted it was, and how Dolan was willing to explore every angle of his premise in pitiless detail, and that was the leading man. Poupaud was no slouch as a thespian, but he simply did not convince as a transsexual, even if he did occasionally make dainty hand gestures and demure expressions crossed his features: he was a heterosexual male, and that's the way his character came across for ninety-five percent of the running time, in spite of Herculean efforts to portray Laurence otherwise.
So that was fine for scenes where he would be wrestling with his passion for Fred, but the manner in which he never seemed interested in any men and preferred the company of women was not going to have us thinking, yeah, he's been in denial for all his life and now he's turning that around, if anything it would have us more pondering that Laurence was making a mistake and he was never going to be content carrying on like this. Although, to be fair this was precisely how the story worked itself out, leaving an impression of a man who needed some serious therapy to work out his issues that a sex change was not going to help with in the slightest. It was unfortunate he was never as believable as a character as the others surrounding him.
Such as Fred, with Clément offering up a tour de force as the lover and making the best case for seeing the film through to its bitter(sweet) end. Dolan was patently impressed by her abilities and gave her every opportunity to showcase what she could do, from a blow-up scene in a restaurant to rival Jack Nicholson's in Five Easy Pieces to every time Fred tried to run away from her attraction to Laurence only to become desperate as she was dragged back in, this was one of the best chances any leading actress had won in her era. Occasionally the director would get a little cute and have such sights as a butterfly emerge from Poupaud's mouth or the two leads strolling down the road as a few laundry baskets of clothes fall about them in slow motion, but this did add to a texture that would be keen to catch the audience off-guard and never allow them to settle, with the sole element we could be sure of the central characters' bond, however fraught with stress that became. Many would catch how long this went on and not give it a chance, but Clément was well worth it. Music by Noia.
