There are always polarizing films at the Cannes Film Festival, many of which get showered with boos from the highly-critical audience. This year one film that received some pretty harsh treatment was Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World, which stars Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Vincent Cassel, Nathalie Baye, and Gaspard Ulliel. However when all was said and done the Jury praised Dolan's film, honoring it with two awards, and now the first trailer is here so the rest of us can begin to judge for ourselves.
Based on the Jean-Luc Lagarce play, the film centers on a writer who returns home to announce his impending death, and the ramifications that follow. Here's the official synopsis:
After 12 years of absence, a writer goes back to his hometown, planning on annoucing his upcoming death to his family. As resentment soon rewrites the course of the afternoon, fits and feuds unfold, fuelled by loneliness and doubt, while all attempts of empathy are sabotaged by people’s incapacity to listen and love.
From top to bottom the cast is terrific, and Dolan seems to going for ample moments of levity to go along with such a heavy premise. Based on this it looks like a solid drama but if he got the emotional mix wrong then it could go off the rails quickly. It's Only the End of the World has yet to gain U.S. distribution but we'll update you if that changes.
