Tom at the Farm

Tom at the Farm
Film poster
Directed by	Xavier Dolan
Produced by	Xavier Dolan Nathanaël Karmitz Charles Gillibert
Screenplay by	Xavier Dolan Michel Marc Bouchard
Based on	Tom at the Farm by Michel Marc Bouchard
Starring	Xavier Dolan Pierre-Yves Cardinal Lise Roy Évelyne Brochu
Music by	Gabriel Yared
Cinematography	André Turpin
Edited by	Xavier Dolan
Distributed by	MK2 (international sales) Entertainment One
Release dates	2 September 2013 (2013-09-02) (Venice) 28 March 2014 (2014-03-28) (Canada)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Canada France
Language	French

Tom at the Farm (French: Tom à la ferme) is a 2013 psychological thriller directed by and starring Xavier Dolan. The film is based on the play of the same name by Michel Marc Bouchard. It was screened in the main competition section at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2013,^[1][2][3] and also at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival in the Special Presentation section.^[4] At Venice the film won the FIPRESCI Prize.^[5]

The film was nominated for Best Picture at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards, but did not win.^[6]

Plot

Tom, a young advertising copywriter, travels to the country for the funeral of his boyfriend Guillaume. There, he is shocked to learn that no one knows who he is, nor his relationship to the deceased. Guillaume's brother Francis soon sets the rules of a twisted game. In order to protect the family's name and the deceased's grieving mother, Agathe, Tom now has to play the peacekeeper in a household whose obscure past bodes even greater darkness for his "trip" to the farm.

Production

After completing his 2012 feature film Laurence Anyways, Dolan felt that "a change of direction was needed" since, in his own words, the previous three movies dealt with the subject of impossible love.^[7] Having seen a production of the play a year earlier, he contacted Bouchard about adapting it for the screen. He was fascinated by the play's violence and brutality and felt it could be explored further on screen. Dolan also liked the role of the mother in the play, since "mothers and sons, .. exhausted mothers is always appealing" to him.^[8]

Initially Dolan had the idea to not use music in the film. He thought that silence and sounds of howling wind and creaking floorboards would increase the tension. This idea was scrapped during the editing process, and he asked the Academy Award-winning composer Gabriel Yared to create the score for the film.^[7]

Reception

Tom at the Farm has received generally favorable reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 77% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 60 reviews, with an average score of 7.1/10.^[9] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described it as an "intriguing [film] coiled with ardor and fear."^[10] Irish Times' Tara Brady gave it five out of five stars and hailed it as a "work of genius", in which Dolan "transforms Michel Marc Bouchard's source stage play into a unique, enigmatic thriller."^[11]

Variety's Guy Lodge also wrote a positive review of the film, citing it as "Dolan's most accomplished and enjoyable work to date, ... also his most commercially viable". He praised the "glorious" score by Yared and the "gorgeous" cinematography of André Turpin.^[12]

David Ehrlich in his review for Film.com gave the film a rating of 7.7, writing that "Tom at the Farm is occasionally impenetrable as a drama, it's seldom less than gripping as an exercise in suspense." Ehrlich also noted the score: "certain scenes feel like they exist only to provide a visual backdrop for Gabriel Yared's urgently bleating string score".^[13]

The Hollywood Reporter's critic David Rooney reviewed the film unfavorably and criticized Dolan for being self-obsessed. He wrote: "It's also hard to take the film seriously when scene after scene explores the director's face with such swooning intoxication. Shots of Tom are held and held and then held some more—at the wheel of his car, in the cornfields, running in slow motion with his blond locks dancing in the breeze, sitting pensively on a bed in his underwear, or looking out through a screen door as a single tear streaks his face, like Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables".^[14] Dolan replied to Rooney in a tweet: "You can kiss my narcissistic ass."^[15]

Cast

• Xavier Dolan as Tom Podowski
• Pierre-Yves Cardinal as Francis Longchamp
• Lise Roy as Agathe Longchamp
• Évelyne Brochu as Sarah Thibault
• Manuel Tadros as Barman
• Anne Caron as Doctor
• Jacques Lavallée as Priest

Awards and nominations

References

External links

• Tom at the Farm at the Internet Movie Database