The Death & Life of John F. Donovan (Xavier Dolan, 2019)

[mfunk9786]

Xavier Dolan's next movie will be his first English-language US production, will star Jessica Chastain and that guy who plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones

[mfunk9786]

Dolan says this is the first teaser poster:



The film has a positively massive cast of big and/or celebrated names: Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, Kit Harington, Bella Thorne, Jacob Tremblay, Thandie Newton, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Michael Gambon, Amara Karan... expect it to be a big festival showpiece next year.

[domino harvey]

It takes ingenuity to take an unflattering picture of Jessica Chastain, but Dolan's done it. Also, the plot for this will probably keep it safely out of the mainstream periphery (though I guess Man Without a Face found an audience)

[spectre]

Kind of interested to see what Dolan does with this one. I know he's a divisive figure, but he's made more good films than bad ones to now, and the premise here seems intriguing enough.

[mfunk9786]

[Kirkinson]

Jessica Chastain (and her whole subplot) has been cut from the film.

[spectre]

Sounds like a positive development to me. Chastain as a villain in a Dolan film seemed like a recipe for disaster!

[domino harvey]

He cut out the top billed star? Brilliant commercial move for a film already facing an uphill battle. Wonder how his financiers feel right about now?

[mfunk9786]

This stuff happens with less transparency and glad-handing all the time, and the film is still full of stars. Gimme a break - glad he’s pieced together the film he likes most regardless of how it turns out.

EDIT: Was not a good idea to search for this on Twitter lest one find a bunch of children who don’t realize that films aren’t just a collection of woke baes - one #resistance dork was upset that Chastain was cut and not Susan Sarandon, as if anyone, let alone someone from Quebec, is making decisions on film editing based on who has the most Hillary Clinton loyalty

[Big Ben]

This stuff happens with less transparency and glad-handing all the time, and the film is still full of stars. Gimme a break - glad he’s pieced together the film he likes most regardless of how it turns out.

EDIT: Was not a good idea to search for this on Twitter lest one find a bunch of children who don’t realize that films aren’t just a collection of woke baes - one #resistance dork was upset that Chastain was cut and not Susan Sarandon, as if anyone, let alone someone from Quebec, is making decisions on film editing based on who has the most Hillary Clinton loyalty

No doubt you've seen me talk about how awful Twitter is. Film Twitter is filled to the brim with people who have no idea how films are constructed and will post the absolute most nonsensical shit to try and appear relevant either politically or socially. Debate? Nonsense. Nothing matters on #FilmTwitter! It's a Mad Max style free for all with shitposts being flung like weapons. And it's ten times worse if you're a woman or a minority. My advice is to stay within your own tribal bubbles because if you don't you're going to want to physically expire at least once a day.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Sounds like a positive development to me. Chastain as a villain in a Dolan film seemed like a recipe for disaster!

She couldn't have been as monstrous as she was in Crimson Peak!

[mfunk9786]

So the rumor at this point is that Chastain's character was a vindictive tabloid reporter who manufactured the molestation accusations against the title character out of whole cloth, and that it's a pretty terrible time to make a movie with that kind of over-the-top portrayal of a journalist who assists in perpetuating false accusations against someone in the entertainment industry. Apparently Dolan found a film he liked better in the editing room without it, too, so this seems like a win/win - and all of a sudden Jessica Chastain has a reputation as the wokest woke who ever woked that she needs to uphold, too. She's come out and said she's fine with it and can't wait to collaborate with Dolan again.

[McCrutchy]

So the rumor at this point is that Chastain's character was a vindictive tabloid reporter who manufactured the molestation accusations against the title character out of whole cloth, and that it's a pretty terrible time to make a movie with that kind of over-the-top portrayal of a journalist who assists in perpetuating false accusations against someone in the entertainment industry. Apparently Dolan found a film he liked better in the editing room without it, too, so this seems like a win/win - and all of a sudden Jessica Chastain has a reputation as the wokest woke who ever woked that she needs to uphold, too. She's come out and said she's fine with it and can't wait to collaborate with Dolan again.

I'm sure she already got paid, will possibly get money on the back-end anyway, and now she doesn't have to defend her role in the film, either. As you said, everyone wins.

[domino harvey]

Responses are, yet again for this year at TIFF, all over the place but the negative takes are brutal. I thought this quote from the Guardian's one-star review summed up what many of us already could have guessed:

In Xavier Dolan’s wildly misfiring new film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, his first English language feature, he revisits issues important to him and his work but with little care for what anyone else might find entertaining, engaging or even coherent to anyone but Xavier Dolan.

[mfunk9786]

So glad I went into Mommy having no preconceived notions about the filmmaker who made it (even his age). The snippy bias surrounding him makes reviews of his work near-unreadable, even if this winds up being a flaming pile of garbage.

[domino harvey]

This has a remarkable 8% on Rotten Tomatoes right now

[tenia]

Cue to Dolan ranting about RT's bullying him.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I like everything Dolan directed up to and including Mommy. His last French-language film looked like it passed the tipping point of acceptable navel-gazing. This one has a whiff of My Blueberry Nights about it - where a foreign director makes a dismal English language film and never recovers.

[Cde.]

The difference being that Dolan was never near the level of a WKW, so while Wong can put out an acceptably good recovery effort like The Grandmaster, I don't think Dolan will ever make a good movie again.

[domino harvey]

I like everything Dolan directed up to and including Mommy. His last French-language film looked like it passed the tipping point of acceptable navel-gazing. This one has a whiff of My Blueberry Nights about it - where a foreign director makes a dismal English language film and never recovers.

Natalie Portman = bad luck talisman? Though she brought Pablo Larrain plenty of success with his English-language debut, so maybe not

[mfunk9786]

I don't think Dolan will ever make a good movie again.

...the guy's 29 years old, what on Earth is this hyperbole - most directors haven't made one good movie by that age

[tenia]

Plus, it's not as if no directors ever had a good run followed by a poorly received movie, without their career ending just because of that one movie.
At worst, it makes just reduces the current positive halo effect surrounding Dolan (which might not be such a bad thing), but Dolan might very well go on for another movie, which might be good or not, and this just being a sole misfire.
I mean, who knows / cares ?

[mfunk9786]

I mean, who knows / cares ?

Wisest thing in this thread

[domino harvey]

I'm pretty sure most of the board was already saying "Who cares" about Dolan

[mfunk9786]

Domino - just curious since I don't recall, have you seen any of his films? Would just assume based on the algorithm I have in my head for your tastes that you'd run screaming in the other direction but I don't recall you reacting to any here