There is a lovely delicacy to Xavier Dolan's eighth feature film as director. The Quebecois auteur, often described as a 'wunderkind' due to being a Cannes mainstay since his film debut at the age of 20, tends to trade in emotion as a source of high-wire melodrama, letting cattiness enliven the screen with the snarling ferocity of youth. Matthias & Maxime marks an evolution in his preoccupation with passion. His two lead men struggle to process desire and confusion, yet these feelings are restrained by the exterior forces which govern the rest of their lives.
The central relationship dynamic is deftly embedded within the casual rhythm of a friendship group. Everyone trades insults with a good-natured familiarity born of a shared history. At a group hang, the host's sister Erika (Camille Felton), a “wacky hoe”, solicits two male cast members for her student film. Matthias (Freitas) and Maxime (Dolan) step up, discovering at the last moment that their scene requires a kiss.
Dolan doesn't show the kiss, instead focusing on the new electrified fault-lines that fissure outwards in the countdown to Maxime's departure. Chaotic domestic scenes with Dolan's favourite actress, Mommy star Anne Dorval, wrapped in a dressing gown and spitting acidic remarks, reveal the toxic atmosphere that Max wants to escape, while a wine-coloured birthmark on one side of his face is designed to show the self-consciousness he carries. By contrast, Matthias has the chiselled features and designer stubble of a Hugo Boss model, a long-term girlfriend and a bright future in the corporate world, if he wants it. Harris Dickinson shows up for two ridiculous entertaining scenes, representing who Matthias may become if he sticks to the corporate bro path.
The story sweep is humble, with no grand dénouements or declarations. Dolan finds meaning in the way he frames characters in personally revealing moments, whether in swirling autumn leaves, a steamed-up windowpane or a wishful mind's eye.
