Though it doesn't stray too far from Xavier Dolan's usual themes of questions of identity and sexuality, 'Matthias & Maxime' displays growth that comes from the maturity that resulted the movie as one of Dolan's most engaging and modest film in years.
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Sir_AmirSyarif1 September 2020
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wsprovaprova27 August 2020Overall I liked this film. I have never seen the film technique before that Xavier uses twice, for example during the party, where there is no obvious script, it seems ad-libbed. It gives the feeling of a party.
It's a love story, with of course, the difference of it being a gay love story. It illustrates the difficulty of falling in love and coming out of the closet at the same time.
Of course you can only do so much in two hours, but I felt that the mood of the film, especially that of Matthias, was a bit monotone, although his character was nicely filled out.
The other actors were all good. The photography was beautiful. -
socrates410 June 2019What struck my most about this film was that, just twenty minutes in, I got the feeling that I was watching a totally new kind of film. It's different from anything else. You don't notice it at first though. It follows the same sorts of conventions as other films, but at a certain moment I realized it had a completely unique tone to it which I personally had never seen before.
I don't know if it was deliberate. I don't know if it's something that's existed in other films, but it's certainly something I don't recall having ever seen myself. It almost feels like what some would call realism, but it's not. And since it's not quite that, it ends up being something completely different. It's subtle at first, but it never lets up. The wonderful camerawork only adds to it. Recommend. -
SJSondergaard3 January 2021A group of former high school friends gathers at a French-Canadian country retreat to swim, get drunk and hit a few bongs. During the course of the evening Matthias (a lawyer) and Maxime (a bartender) are hoodwinked into locking lips on camera for an "expressionist" film project put together by the amusingly annoying younger sister of one of their group. Reluctantly they comply. The deed done and the weekend over, both return to the routine of their daily lives, but as autumn gives way to the first snow of winter, a chill has descended on their friendship.
What follows is an absorbing character-study of the two men; Matthias representing Order (professional at a city law firm, dating a woman named Sarah, and a stickler for the correct use of grammar) to Maxime's Chaos (single, scruffy and struggling to care for an addict mother.) Friends since childhood, they are presented almost as a long-term couple within the group. As Maxime prepares to leave Montreal for a new life in Australia it is in Matthias that we begin to see signs that something is amiss as his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. So what exactly is at the root of his unease? The kiss is a bit of a McGuffin, the hook which serves to throw light on the bigger issue of Maxime's going away, with clues pointing to its cause and effect.
Director Xavier Dolan (the endearingly shambolic Maxime) explores the relationship between the two protagonists by taking the unusual step of separating them for most of the film, which covers twelve days leading to Max's leaving party, but takes his time to embellish the slight drama with enough symbolism, visual cues and smokescreens to keep things interesting; a change of clothes before filming their smooch sees them switch colours (red to blue and vice versa); Matthias takes a night-time swim and fetches up exhausted on the wrong shore; Max gets drunk and watches as the birthmark spilling like blood from his eye vanishes in the mirror before him. Scenes are framed by windows, lenses, mirrors, hands, giving the sense of peering in on a slowly unfolding mystery. Mundane conversations, on second viewing, are imbued with connotation (note the opening line of dialogue).
This is not, then, a film full of vacuous men sitting around with their shirts off, clinking wine glasses in swimming pools or flailing around in scenes of a softcore nature. There are, instead, some terrific performances from all concerned, intertwined with wry humour, and the dynamics and interplay between the larger group of friends feels genuinely authentic.
If the film falters slightly it's that the ending is, alas, ambiguous (Dolan thinks it's clear where things are headed as the credits roll, but then he wrote it.) There is a cathartic moment between the two men late in proceedings not unlike Emma Thompson's famous snotting scene from Sense and Sensibility (and with a serious amount of added smoulder) but when the final piece of the jigsaw slots into place - during a phone call on Max's final day as he attends to a last-minute detail prior to his departure - the picture remains incomplete.
At its core, the film is a beautifully understated snapshot of two people separately going through the same moment in their lives and the shadow it throws over each of them, as those who know them look on in puzzlement, and holds up a mirror to something we are all sometimes guilty of; hiding our feelings so convincingly that we unwittingly become the architect of our own and others' misery.
Are you ready for your close-up? -
chong_an23 August 2022Matthias (Matt) and Maxime (Max) have been best friends since early childhood. While they still share a common group of friends, their life journeys have diverged - Matt is a successful lawyer, while Max is a bartender. Max has guardianship of his mother (Dolan again with mother issues?) and may be trying to get away from her by passing the guardianship to his aunt and going to Australia for 3 years. As the date for Max's leaving nears, Matt's behavior becomes more erratic, though he is unable to properly express his feelings, even though Max offered to delay his departure and have them spend a last weekend together.
The submerged feelings theme reminds me of Happy Together. However, I don't quite buy that 7-year-old feelings for companionship are a precursor to what might be 30-year-old sexual feelings.
The large number of characters is a distraction, as it took energy to try to figure out which were of significance. The many sets / locations also seemed excessive for the story. Dolan may have gotten a bigger budget, but it the film could do with some tightening. -
lasttimeisaw9 February 2022"For people who become besties, their cherished friendship is always alloyed with a degree of love or affection, and a carnal one is not excluded. There is an old saying "no pure friendship can exist between a man and a woman", which now we shall modify to "no pure friendship can exist between two persons". So thematically, Dolan delves into something more removed from queerness, the consummation of Matthias and Maxime's making out in the utility room, coming lately and first in close-ups and then sublimely peered through a window pane, is less sexual than emotional, it is two best friends saying goodbye to each other, words fail them, but bodies don't lie, a rite of passage towards adulthood."
read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks. -
aoki_ra23 September 2020I watched this movie just out of boredom. At first, it looked like it was an ordinary LGBTQ story. In fact, it is. But the thing is it's not about the story, but how it portrays. It's rather interesting because of the actings and how naturally the plot follows.
I liked it even more than Love, Simon or Lady Bird since I feel like they're similar in genre minus the high school affairs. -
alaz_izmir3 March 2020Dysfunctional family issues especially with his mother, repressed feelings for a childhood friend (Max), broken relationships, guilt are the cliched contexts in his last work which can be seen often in his previous films such as Tom at the farm, I killed my mother, Mommy... Quiet predictable script. Rating: 5.5
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jettaaaha316 November 2019I saw this piece at the queer film festival Mezipatra in Brno (Czech republic) and I liked it a lot. Camerawork is splendid, actors feel authentic and the soundtrack was perfect for the tone of the movie 10/10
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catalinaarciniegassaenz14 December 2021As someone who has just finished watching all of Xavier Dolan´s films, I can say this movie has the same three characteristics as all (or most) of his other work: complicated relationships and identity as a theme, an awesome soundtrack, and dialogues where silences and what is left unsaid are just as important as words. This is good or bad, depending on whether you were expecting his work to have evolved after a decade.
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danybur6 January 2021Matthias and Maxime have been friends since childhood. The first (Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas) is a handsome lawyer with an upward career and in a relationship with a woman, while the second (Xavier Dolan), lives with his recovering addicted mother (Anne Dorval) and is preparing a trip to spend at least two years in Australia. As a result of a bet, both must participate in a short film in which they kiss, a situation that will trigger questions in both.
Xavier Dolan addresses several issues in this film: the possibility of two men coming out of the closet after a relationship of years, the end of youth, the divergent paths that can separate two people, the relationship with their mothers (own and others) and affiliate responsibilities.
The process between the two protagonists is partly reminiscent of the films by Argentine Marco Berger, with arguments consisting of waiting for both to consume a sexual encounter after accumulating erotic tension throughout the film, only that the accumulation of tension (sexual and affective) is almost absent in Dolan's film, a process to which his ellipsis and the approach of the protagonists contribute.
The goodbye to youth is given by the noisy and festive scenes with his group of friends from different social backgrounds, in scenes that are too long that in general do not contribute to the dramatic development and provide some moment of somewhat faded humor.
The (always) conflictive relationship with the mother is a topic in Dolan's films: it also appears in I killed my mother and in Mommy and, in all three cases, with Anne Dorval in that role.
Unfortunately, in addition, all these planes do not finish combining and enhancing each other and some even become annoying from time to time due to their dispersion. Of course, the movie is well shot, with some slick images, some editing details, and an interesting soundtrack.
Matthias and Maxime is another example that shows that Dolan works better and achieves more powerful and effective stories when he operates the playful, as The Imaginary Loves and perhaps the best of his films, Tom at the Farm have shown. -
mmmmelissannnn28 May 2020Matthias and Maxime , what a beautiful film. The actors were amazing! The friendships felt natural , as did the attraction between Matt and Max. The only matter I would question is the ending. It felt like a rushed conclusion to their story. Other than that , I will definitely be revisiting this film again and again.
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dantokka27 May 2022It huts my heart. The movies has its boring moments. But the story itself feels personal and I'm sure many people lived situations close to the film. I wish I could know what happens next...
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MOscarbradley9 October 2020Xavier Dolan, one-time enfant terrible of French-Canadian cinema, hasn't so much mellowed as become conventional. If the plot of his latest film, "Matthias & Maxime" is a little off-the-wall, the treatment is alarmingly predictable. Two male friends agree to take part in a girlfriend's student film in a scene where they have to kiss or indeed 'make out'. Dolan, for some reason, cuts away from the kiss itself and builds his film around the impact their actions has on their lives and their friendship.
It's beautifully filmed and well acted by both Dolan and Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas in the title roles as well as by a handful of people you would hardly want to spend time with normally and therein lies the rub; there's no-one to empathize with and nothing happens to make us care very much about Matthias & Maxime and their hang-ups. I'm not disputing Dolan's very obvious talent and it's still hard to believe he's only thirty-one, (he made his first feature aged only twenty), but these male-orientated and family-orientated psychodramas are starting to get a little dull. This might first look like he's branching out but there's nothing here we haven't seen before. -
ciffou30 May 2021I gotta say the pace was better than most of Dolan's films... perhaps it has something to do with age. Sadly, age has not given him a bit of self-awareness. The irony of him poking fun of the pretentious girl wanting to make artsy movies! The swimming and the road shot would like to have a word with him.
Another thing I think he should be doing by now as an adult is talking with someone about his mommy issues instead of reusing them over and over throughout his filmography - it does not really add anything to Maxime's story.
I'm not going to get into the token black friend and using the scar as a plot device. Eventually someone will point that out and I don't have the patience to do it right now.
Overall I didn't get as bored as I did for example with "Heartbeats" - and I rolled my eyes only a couple of times...especially with the sister's acting.
I didn't feel there was no real resolution to pretty much anything, but it entertained me while it lasted. I think that more of Matthias (but with less "moody" "artsy" "windy" shots), the movie would have been more trascendental than what it is. -
mehobulls29 August 2020This guy is creating all the scenes I want to film! Visually stunning. Plus the subtleties of this film, the looks, the desire. It's so raw, so good. That being said half of the film I spent thinking about how Canadian French has nothing (!!!) in common with the French language, and the other half I was thinking how much Matt looks like Rafael from Jane the Virgin!
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mirka-glassova22 February 2020I saw this movie already 2 times and will probably see again. Amazing writting and even better acting also from Xavier himself.
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toniomondo28 June 2023A non-trivial two-layered movie about the acceptance of hidden feelings with high psychologism of the inner self-feelings of the main characters concealed beneath "the foam of the days" - conversations, meetings, games, disputes, and the rest of the manifestation of the existentiality of life.
An underrated movie from which people expected typical bedroom scenes and a typical Netflix-style love story.
However , this is a touching, dramatic movie with a wonderful plot and a lingering sense of a warm summer evening filled with laugh of friends. It's confident, pretty "European" movie. One of the best depictions of a gay kiss portraying unspoken love , and the love that longs to be revealed. -
kenztay20 January 2021Pointless film with the usual Dolanesque non-ending ending. The characters were underdeveloped, ironically Dolan's character in particular was difficult to read and understand other than that he was from an abusive home and this was the likely cause he was leaving for Australia. How he was able to simply move to Australia without a job waiting and no mentionable or worthy skills was difficult to comprehend, especially considering Australia's strict visa system. I also did not understand why he got so upset about the email not being forwarded by Matt either. In addition, the film also features a futile and purposeless cameo from actor Harris Dickinson, he contributes as much to the plot as the Tuxedo football scene did to the plot of The Room. There's also a scene that places emphasis on an office plant, another in which the characters sing a Eurovision song (to be fair - it should have won that year) and a scene where there is a waterbed present. The ending resolves nothing either, does he go? Does he stay? Does his friend who is obviously in love with him put on his big boy pants and admit his feelings? Who the hell knows. After watching it, I felt like I had been Punk'd. I don't have anything against Dolan but it's becoming clear that 'Tom at the Farm', which is a sensational film and Dolan's best, is an exception rather than the rule for Dolan's movies. Disappointing.
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johnrlee9 October 2020Every character is so well written and authentic. It really feels like a film you become a part of.
It's extremely well shot and directed, and tells a complex story of platonic and romantic love.
Gay cinema has really taken on a new level now and this film is a fine example of it. -
javierubio21 December 2020Once Again , This Director did not do anything for me at least if I compare this with "I Killed My Mother" is better and the scene of the real kiss between Matthias & Maxime was the only interesting scene for me! Once Again I got lost what this Director wanted to express with this Movie: Was it about Love? Was it about Friendship? Was it about Abuse? Or Getting lost in all the scenes? I think A Great director should embrace real life into the Movie and real action reflects into the general subject that wants to transmit and for me even I do not doubt he should be talented, I am still not quite sure to understand his message through The Cinema! In Few Words All the subject of this movie was all over the place, only group of friends and reunions and celebrations here and there but what was the real essence of all this? Mmmm Maybe i wasted my time again watching this Film!
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blurustc8 March 2021I've watched most of Xavier Dolan movies in a chronological order, and i've noticed that, as many other young directors, his filmography is like a circle. After having his breaking through moment with I killed my Mother, made a couple of "pretentious" movies -as some would say-, then a couple with some big names and famous faces, then back to more "Xavier" like movies, whatever that means, finally it's a full circle. As for Matthias and Maxime it felt like Dolan wanted to go back to his roots again, which was probably the best choice he could've made after all his previous films.
It's quite a fascinating thing to see someone grow throughout the years, to observe someone slowly but surly develop their style, and to experiment and explore in as many genres as Dolan did, he manages not to only accept that challenge and have the enough courage to display his filmography and be able to say things like "here i made this thriller and this drama and this romance!" but to succeed at it too. His films are always changing their shape and form, and even though in this film he tackles the same themes and topics as a lot of his previous films; dysfunctional family dynamics, friendships, mother figures, identity and so on, the way he presenters these themes in his films where it's constantly engaging without getting too repetitive or boring, his stories flow perfectly and effortlessly, it's quite a fascinating and a very special gift to say the least. His movies aren't trying to go somewhere they don't belong nor is he is not trying to talk about something he's yet to fully understand, his movies are about young people and youth, and they're developing with him, as he ages we'll get to see more of this mature Dolan, and i'm anticipating a new decade with his future projects with so much joy.
There's so much intensity in this movie, the characters are so vibrant they radiate life everywhere they go it's beautifully contagious. It felt like we got to witness this very intimate thing grow between these two men at such a confusing time of their lives. In movies, when two straight long term friends, a man and a woman, develop feelings for one another it's always easier to act upon these feeling and see where it leads, and the idea of a man and a woman being together is overall more socially acceptable, probably someone in their friend group was secretly rooting for them for years. But, when the scenario is reversed and it's about two men who develop feelings for each other after being friends for years, suddenly everything is difficult, the complexity of these new born feelings, the confusion, the doubt, the hesitation, the desires, the tension, the self control in each other presence, the having to deal with families and shared friend groups, coming out and all what could've change in their lives if they chose to act upon these feelings, it's all a risk and whole different level of complicated. It was all captured perfectly with the stunning and raw performance of everyone involved in the making of this film.
Matthias and Maxime is by far the most minimalistic film Xavier has ever made, the most adult like too. Not to mention the mesmerizing cinematography, just stunning colorful shots throughout the whole film it was one of the most visually pleasing films i've seen in a while. Lgbtq+ cinema and cinema in general has a promising future with someone like Xavier Dolan in it.
Regardless of whether you like Xavier Dolan's films or not, this one is definitely a must see! -
giorgiddd30 March 2020I have seen all of the films directed and written by Xavier and I can honestly say that it's one of the best from his work!
Beautiful story, sophisticated scene, amazing actors and actresses... with nice soundtracks.
Thanks a lot! -
ohlabtechguy6 December 2020Ninety five percent of gay themed movies show the primary characters smoking, drinking, getting drunk, using drugs and swimming in dirty water. This flick was just like all those only the competent actors were wasted on a POS storyline that showed nothing and led to nowhere. Never got to know Matt or Max...zero character development....just a slow burn to nowhere. In fact, with that in mind, I just knocked a star off. Max, with his ink stained face, and addicted, dysfunctional mother was trapped in a pathetic situation. Why he didn't blow his brains out to escape his crappy life is beyond me. But hey....maybe Australia would open up a whole new and better chapter to his life. Too bad that chapter is not something the audience got to see.
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augustoam26 June 2020Amazing directing and acting. I could watch it several times.