Prodigious auteur Xavier Dolan (Mommy) comes of age with his dazzling sixth film It’s Only the End of the World, based on the play of the same name by Jean-Luc Lagarce and featuring an all-star cast of top French actors.
After 12 years of estrangement, a writer (Gaspard Ulliel) returns to his hometown, planning on announcing his impending death to his family. However, his mother (Nathalie Baye), tempestuous siblings (Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux) and beleaguered sister-in-law (Marion Cotillard) have their own personal grievances to air. As buried resentments threaten to surface and fits and feuds begin to unfold, all attempts at empathy are sabotaged by the family’s inability to listen and love.
Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, It’s Only the End of the World is a bold and stylistically daring melodrama performed with thunderous emotion. Taut, tense and packed with explosive performances shot in claustrophobic close-up, it further confirms Dolan as one of the most singular talents in world cinema.
It’s Only the End of the World opens in cinemas & Curzon Home Cinema on 24 February. http://www.ItsOnlyTheEndOfTheWorld.com