Laurence Anyways
Director: Xavier Dolan
Writer: Xavier Dolan
Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne Clément, Nathalie Baye, Monia Chokri, Susan Almgren, Yves Jacques

Plot:
Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) and his girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clément) are pretty happy with each other. But only until Laurence announces that he’s actually a woman and that she finally wants to make the transition. Fred is shocked and doesn’t know how to cope but she decides to try. But things aren’t easy for either of them and so their relationship develops in twists and turns.

Laurence Anyways is a visually striking film with great characters that is unfortunately an hour too long. But it’s still very much worth watching. I enjoyed the most parts.

Xavier Dolan has a way to make images speak that is quite simply astounding. It even makes the fashion of the 80s/early 90s look cool (helped along by the charmingly trashy soundtrack). That is quite an achievement. But generally there are so many things and little scenes that just looked wonderful, whether it is Laurence walking through the streets and all you get are the stares of the people watching her, or whether it’s Fred and Laurence walking through a rain of clothes, or Fred quite literally washed away be her emotions, or the stage of the Five Roses. There’s just a lot to watch and to take in.

I really loved the characters. Especially Fred, I have to say, with her chatty nature and her energy and her openness. But also Laurence and her spirit. The two of them made a great couple. And I really enjoyed the idiosyncratic relationship Laurence has with her mother (Nathalie Baye). That was weird and also great.

But the movie is really long (objectively: 160 minutes, subjectively an hour too fucking long) and it could have done with a little trimming. For example, I think that you could have easily cut the interview framing that wasn’t really necessary and added a whole lot of voice-over which is something that should generally be avoided, too. In the end, I couldn’t really go along with Fred and Laurence anymore because I just wanted to go home. Part of that could have been that I saw the movie in German, though [because apparently all of Austria decided it wasn’t necessary to show this film in OV] and the dubbing was atrocious. Really. Annoying and over the top.

Nevertheless I can easily see myself watching this film again (even if I might fast forward through a lot of things). Only in the OV this time.

Summarising: yes, give it a try.