It’s Only the End of the World [Juste la fin du monde] ** (2016, Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux) – Movie Review

Gaspard Ulliel stars as young gay, terminally ill writer Louis, who returns home after a long time away of 12 years to re-connect (if possible) with his family and eventually tell them that he is dying, in writer-director Xavier Dolan’s flat, uninvolving and disappointing 2016 drama It’s Only the End of the World [Juste la fin du monde].

It co-stars the fine team of Nathalie Baye as Martine, Vincent Cassel as Antoine, Marion Cotillard as Catherine, and Léa Seydoux as Suzanne, selected against their usual casting.

Somehow, with all the talk, it never gets over the idea that is based on play (by Jean-Luc Lagarce), with awkward dialogue. There is a very good cast, trying hard for it, but they are wasted, and the story (such as it is) and characters (such as they are) are uninteresting and uninvolving. It is one of Dolan’s flops, like Tom at the Farm (also based on a play).

Ulliel is magnetic and is the film’s main attraction. He won the César Award for Best Actor. Xavier Dolan collected two César Awards for Best Director and Best Editing.

Dolan’s flourishes to make it more interesting are distracting, though just surface deep. Nathalie Baye is interesting as the mother Martine but Vincent Cassel mis-pitches his performance in an unsympathetic role as Antoine.

Dolan won the Grand Prix (the Grand Prize of the Jury) and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival 2016, becoming the maker of the second Canadian film to win the Grand Prix, after Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Dolan on Twitter, writing: ‘You’ve made us proud again, Xavier.’

At the César Awards, the three wins included Best Director (Xavier Dolan), Best Actor (Gaspard Ulliel) and Best Editing (Xavier Dolan).

A co-production of Canada and France, it was shot in Montreal and Laval, Quebec, beginning on 26 May 2015.

Gaspard Ulliel (24 November 1984 – 19 January 2022).

Gaspard Ulliel was critically injured in a ski accident at the La Rosière resort in Savoie on 18 January 2022, and was taken to a hospital in Grenoble, where he died on 19 January 2022, aged 37.

He won the César Award for Most Promising Actor in 2004 for his role in A Very Long Engagement, which co-starred Audrey Tautou. He was best known for portraying the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007) and fashion mogul Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic Saint Laurent (2014).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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