The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The acting in this movie is really good.

To follow the chronic order, I decide to watch this film before Dolan's latest MOMMY (2014), which has just freshly arrived. TOM AT THE FARM is Canadian prodigy and Cannes darling Xavier Dolan's fourth film, adapted from Michel Marc Bouchard's play, this marks the first time he is not the sole writer for his works, it is also a veer of style for him, delves into the murky suspense and violence of a psychological thriller, and notably, in its highly strained chasing-in-the-forest incident near the coda, it conspicuously recalls another exceptional gay-themed thriller Alain Guiraudie's STRANGERS BY THE LAKE (2013, 8/10) of the same year, but these two films end with two completely contrasting options for our protagonists who both face irresistible sexual attraction from the sort who is too dangerous for their own good.Sported as a perennially tacky curly blond, Dolan plays Tom, an urban advertisement editor who has just lost his boyfriend Guillaume in an accident. Driving en route to attend his funeral in a remote farm, Tom meets Guillaume's family members, his mother Agathe (Roy) and his brother Francis (Cardinal) who lives with her and whose existence has never been informed to Tom until now. On top of that, Agathe seems to be unwitting of Guillaume's sexual orientation, so Tom has to comfort her grievance by telling a white lie that Guillaume has a girlfriend named Sarah (Brochu), who in fact is just one of their common friends. Yet, Francis is the one who actually knows it all, his violent and homophobic behaviour towards Tom strikes a sadomasochistic thrill, which is not merely one-sided, as the film not-so- subtly implies Francis is a closeted homosexual himself. They both desperately or compulsively trace the resemblance or remnants of the deceased in each other, to the degree, Tom actually complies to act as a voluntary hostage on the farm and even enjoys the pastoral drudgery. One night Sarah's visit inopportunely provokes Agathe's deeply- buried agony, while apart from Francis' overcompensated interest in Sarah, Tom learns a horrible episode of his past from a bar owner, which overturns his perception of the tight corner where he is in. The second day, he decides to flee and turns his life back on track. Here, Dolan again plays the Aspect Ratio gimmick, in the scenes where Tom is physically abused by Francis, it changes from the usual 1.85:1 to a more smothering letterbox; and if one is familiar with his narcissistic disposition, here he continues to wallow in close-ups, mostly on himself especially when Tom is anguish-ridden or being suffocated to barely catch a breath under Francis' masculine domination. While the entire film is coherently enveloped in an overcast dreariness, the close-knitted cast (both Roy and Brochu are from the original play) has done an amazing job in establishing the engaging tensions and occasionally a smack of warmth glistening. Roy and Cardinal are the MVPs, the former is offered a soul-pulverising flare-up while being consistently emotive during all her presence, and the latter beefs up his boorish machismo with very disarming appeal which superbly gilds an atmosphere of ambiguity in Francis' deadly mystique; on top of that the two together also builds up a detrimental mother-son relationship, which also wittily insinuates what has happened to the mother in the end, it is an innovative modus operandi to justify the plot-line without revealing everything in front of viewer's eyes. As for our triple threat Dolan, with his Joker-alike makeup, he shows beyond doubt that apart from the ostentatious style bandwagon, he certainly is on his way to mature into a multi-faceted filmmaker who is able to tackle with the darkest corner of humanity and leaves his own trademark on it. A final nod to Dolan's cherrypick of songs, Rufus Wainwright's GOING TO A TOWN, appears in the ending credit, is an utterly poignant theme song for Tom's bumpy ride.

This was really something else. I had never seen a film from Xavier Dolan so I didn't know what to really expect, but this is that type of film that you're not sure just how good it really is, or if it even is good, but it's impossible to turn away. When all is said and done, its narrative is actually pretty thin, pretty simple, but it has a sort of intense, maddening tone with a bunch of scenes that come off both so weird and uncomfortable. Again, this makes it feel like a pretty distinctive experience, but once it's over the spell was sort of broken. It reminds me a lot of Stranger by the Lake in that regard, feels like it's great while watching it but after watching it you're not quite sure what you saw was of merit, but unlike that film, this one didn't leave such a bad taste in my mouth and was a lot more entertaining. Maybe not a great film, but a very interesting one at least, and it's pretty admirable that someone so young would do this. The last 15 minutes do take away a lot of its intrigue though.And maybe it says something about me, but I found Pierre Ives Cardinal so unbelievably sexy. So, so wrong but I just couldn't help it.

I really fail to see the brilliance of the movie or of Xavier Dolan. Admittedly, it is the first movie of him I watched, and I will Watch others to try to understand why everybody think he is a Genius.On the story. Parents not aware of their child's sexuality and relatives trying to hide the truth. Really not original or special. It isn't enough to make a good film, perhaps a short. Other than that it's very slow, and there is little to feed on, be it images or music. And full of clichés such as the violent and rough farmer. It is also not clear why he feels the need to disfigure the brother's friend in a bar, nor why he wasn't jailed for it or nobody questioned him about it, neither brother nor parents nor police. Or was it fine for his brother to have someone disfigured for him in a bar?What strikes about Dolan is this movie, apart from the horrible hair color, is how he seems to like filling the screen most of the time. I hadn't a stopwatch, but it feels like he is filling the screen, mostly his head, 50-70 % of the time or more. Are we supposed to be ecstatic about the acting?All in all, this is a movie, that in my opinion, one can afford not to watch.Let's just say that nothing strikes as interesting or remarkable, from the story to the photography to the original soundtrack. Acting is OK.

A very subjective review, and I hate having to put down a film (as an aspiring film director myself), but I would just want to present my personal view of the film, hopefully without ruining it for any of Dolan's fans or anyone who worked on the film. WARNING: This review may be harsh.I saw it at the BFI London Film Festival back in October of 2013. The second film I saw at the festival (following Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity"). Having heard of Xavier Dolan's apparently impressive skills vastly out-spanning his young years, I entered the theatre with much anticipation, and excitement given my immense love for psychological thrillers. Unfortunately, I could not be more disappointed with a film than I was with "Tom At The Farm".FAR too long for the slow pace of the story, I feel that the narrative does not amount to anything. The audience is made to wait an hour and forty-five minutes, and is aching for Tom to just leave the farm, which when he finally does, everything in the story is left completely unresolved. A waste of time in my opinion. An agonising wait with little to no character development or resolution to conflicts to keep the audience interested. "Tom At The Farm" utterly failed to keep me engaged, and just as much as I was dying for Tom to just leave the farm, I was dying to leave the theatre.