Plot

A semi-autobiographical story about Hubert as a young homosexual at odds with his mother.

Teenager Hubert haughtily regards his mother with contempt, and only sees her tacky sweaters and kitsch decorations. In addition to these irritating surface details, there is also his parent's cherished mechanisms of manipulation and guilt. Confused by this love/hate relationship that obsesses him more and more each day, Hubert drifts through the mysteries of adolescence - artistic discoveries, illicit experiences, the opening-up to friendship, and ostracism. The turbulent relationship between mother and son unfolds with a compelling combination of savage fury and melting affection. The stunning, semi-autobiographical directing debut of 20-year-old actor Xavier Dolan.—Warsaw Film Festival

Sixteen year old Hubert Minel is just starting eleventh grade at a public school in Montréal. He lives with his divorced mother, Chantale Lemming, his father/her ex-husband of close to ten years, Richard Minel, although nearby geographically, largely out of their lives both physically and emotionally in not being prepared to be a parent. While Hubert loved and still loves his mother, albeit now not quite in the way a son generally loves a mother, he can now barely tolerate her, their time together which more often than not ends up in a shouting match in what he sees as their incompatibility specifically as mother and son. Even for a class assignment having to do with family, he would rather lie and say that his mother is dead than deal with the facts of her being. At this stage, living with his father, who he barely knows, would be a more favorable option, but what he would really want is for his mother to give him his grandmother's inheritance - which is being held in trust by Chantale until he turns eighteen - so that he can move out on his own. In the meantime, he largely turns to two people for emotional support: his new best friend, Antonin Rimbaud, who seems to have more of a buddy-buddy relationship with his own divorced mother, Hélène Rimbaud; and eventually one of his teachers, Julie Cloutier, arguably the only adult figure with who he has a positive relationship of any kind. Hubert and Chantale's relationship takes a quiet albeit significant turn when Chantale meets Hélène for the first time.—Huggo