Film Festivals

2019 Cannes Critics’ Panel: Day 9 – Xavier Dolan’s Matthias and Maxime

Published on May 22, 2019

Twice in competition and twice a winner, after winning the Jury Prize (unofficial 3rd place) in 2014 for Mommy and the Grand Prix (unofficial 2nd place) in 2016 for It’s Only the End of the World, Matthias and Maxime counts as Xavier Dolan‘s sixth trip to Cannes out of eight feature films in a span of a decade. A return to his low budget roots, this sees Dolan reteam with folks behind (a fifth time with Cinematographer Andre Turpin) and in front of the camera (a fifth time working with actress Anne Dorval). The Quebec-set drama meant to be exploration of friends in their 20s while touching more explicitly on what it is to be gay.

We almost half of our jury weighing in on the midday screenings for Dolan, according to our scores, it looks like this might be the most divisive drama in the comp with highs and lows balancing out for an average of 2.5.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).