Tom (Xavier Dolan) lost his boyfriend Guillaume recently, and feels he has to pay his respects at the funeral. The trouble is, the deceased was from farm country and Tom is resolutely a city dweller, so he has to drive all the way out to the rural area Guillaume lived in and it's not easy to do with so many emotions racing through his mind. To make matters worse, he is well aware the dead man's mother had no idea he was gay, so Tom has to keep up the subterfuge as he would have wished, though when he does eventually find the farm in question, there isn't anyone around. Finding a key to the front door under a bench, he lets himself in and sits down at the kitchen table, then falls asleep...
A bit like Goldilocks, you could suppose, though no porridge is taken, and in spite of Tom being far better off out of there than staying, staying is what he does. This was directed by wunderkind, or enfant terrible if you preferred, Xavier Dolan who also starred in the title role and had more than a couple of duties behind the scenes, once again proving his worth as a genuine auteur even while still in his twenties. This was different this time around in that he didn't write the script based on his own original ideas, as it was drawn from a stage play he adapted with his own particular stamp on the material to craft what from some angles looked like a psychological drama, and from others like a psychological thriller.
It was both, really, and in the drama department resembled a Harold Pinter play offered a gay twist and a suspense atmosphere with eventual drawing together of the plot for what presumably were meant to be exciting sequences. Yet while it had that off-kilter mood where you were not entirely sure of anyone's motivations since they quite often may have made sense to themselves, they may not necessarily make sense to you, therefore it was captivating when you were wrong-footed so often as you were not sure where it was going. One thing was certain: if Tom continued to hang around with Guillaume's brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) then he is on a hiding to nothing, or indeed a hiding to a hiding.
Francis introduces himself to Tom by leaping on him as he sleeps in his boyfriend's bedroom and threatening to kill him if he ever lets on about his romance with the late Guillaume. In spite of everything in his behaviour telling him that Tom is better off driving away as soon after the funeral as possible, once the ceremony is over he turns back, ostensibly to retrieve his luggage but also somehow pulled back to the farm thanks to a form of guilt about letting his partner down and wishing to make amends. Even then it's not very clear, with elliptical editing leaving out various plot points and the audience sort of getting the idea about what was going on, yet also all at sea as to what the protagonist thinks he's doing when Francis insists on regularly assaulting him.
Is Tom a glutton for punishment? Or does he genuinely believe he can assist in saving the farm for whom there seems to be only Francis and his increasingly confused mother Agathe (Lise Roy) to make it a going concern? Why does everyone avoid Francis anyway? We do find that out, but not before Tom's co-worker Sarah (Evelyne Brochu) arrives to rescue him, having posed as Guillaume's girlfriend in photographs he sent back home to reassure his mother he was straight and happy. Then Sarah has trouble leaving too, only she really does want to go, and when she finds Tom's car has seen its wheels removed by Francis to prevent that she twigs all is not well, something we have been aware of for over an hour of the running time. This Hello I Must Be Going - or is it goodbye I must be staying? - mood is spread throughout the storyline, which does amp up tension though again is too difficult to work out conventionally, which makes it compelling but frustrating as well. Nevertheless, it was oppressively presented and should satisfy those interested in the offbeat. Music by Gabriel Yared.
