Mommy
Roadside Attractions | Release Date: January 23, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirJan 22, 2015
There’s so much that is brilliant and unexpected and often downright thrilling about Mommy, the fifth feature (a fact amazing in itself) from 25-year-old Quebec enfant terrible Xavier Dolan. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJan 21, 2015
It taps into every parent's worst nightmare — the horror of being unable to protect an out-of-control child. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 24, 2014
Dolan is a director who thinks hard about the possibilities of cinema and explores them with verve and ingenuity, but it is in his latest film that everything has come together. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJessica KiangMay 24, 2014
There are ups and downs and soapish highs and lows, but what stops this from ever becoming a telenovela is the riveting wonder of the performances and the sheer brio of the filmmaking. Read full review
90
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJan 20, 2015
Mommy is first and foremost a mother-and-son story, but it's also a surprisingly delicate exploration of lonely lives, and the temporary islands of companionship that make them bearable. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 24, 2014
It’s uncanny how much Dolan’s style and overall solipsism have evolved in five years’ time, resulting in a funny, heartbreaking and, above all, original work — right down to its unusual 1:1 aspect ratio — that feels derivative of no one, not even himself. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezFeb 12, 2015
The movie is a furious, in-your-face whirlwind of emotions, but it’s never tiresome or bellicose, and its raucous, messy energy is invigorating. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversJan 21, 2015
Here's the thing about Mommy: Even when Dolan gets self-indulgent and works his themes into the ground, he's a one-man fireworks display. His images jump off the screen and stick in your head. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 24, 2014
As a director, he finally shows a willingness to work on the same wavelength of the material instead of adding distracting bells and whistles that overstate his characters' grievances. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerMar 16, 2015
Dolan has previously been accused of style over substance but here he draws both magnificently together. It’s perhaps a little too long, but Mommy is a movie to make you feel alive. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt GlasbyMar 16, 2015
Exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure – a decent approximation of how the characters feel – Mommy puts us through every setting on the emotional wringer. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 26, 2015
Mommy is a film as harrowing as it is exhilarating, a story sometimes hard to watch but impossible to turn away from. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsGraham FullerJan 22, 2015
Boasting dynamite performances, Mommy excels as a confrontational, compassionate melodrama about the anguishing dilemmas of caretaking. It’s a revelation. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 24, 2014
With Dolan, you feel you're in the company of a truly original voice and one unafraid to make his mistakes right up there on the screen. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 24, 2014
Dolan's energy and attack is thrilling; his movie is often brilliant and very funny in ways which smash through the barriers marked Incorrect and Inappropriate. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonMay 24, 2014
Dolan's fifth feature feels like a strong step forward, striking his most considered balance yet between style and substance, drama-queen posturing and real heartfelt depth. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJan 30, 2015
Mommy is too long for its own good, its sense of hysteria too relentless. But the headlong energy is intoxicating more than exhausting, and Freud would have a field day with Die and Steve. A mother and child, so sweet, so tender, so terrifying. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 30, 2015
It feels like living inside a pressure cooker with one particular family — experiencing their turbulence as if from the inside, while always a little glad to be watching from a safe distance. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 29, 2015
See it; see those three performers go to town. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 29, 2015
The volatile, unbridled emotion of Mommy — its sheer life force — makes up for its structural weaknesses, giving viewers an often breathtaking glimpse of a director who, like his own adamantly unconventional protagonists, is fairly bursting at the seams with spiky, headstrong brio. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 20, 2015
In French with English subtitles, is a showcase for Anne Dorval in the title role. Over the course of this overlong melodrama she wins our understanding and occasionally our sympathy as she struggles to get and keep a job, find a man and keep her maddening, monster of a son (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) under control. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 22, 2015
Mommy is certainly a showcase for powerful acting: Anne Dorval is the coarse but affecting Diane, Antoine-Olivier Pilon is terrifying as Diane’s teenage son, Steve. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleJan 22, 2015
In its garishness, Mommy is a weirdly compelling overreach for this young filmmaker. It's the work of someone clearly passionate, if not disciplined yet, about his cinematic interests. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJan 22, 2015
To take Mommy as an undisciplined outpouring of aggression and angst is to underestimate its artistry. [Mr. Dolan] has both advanced beyond the romanticism of “Heartbeats” and “Laurence Anyways” and regressed toward a more primal and confrontational mode of storytelling. Mommy may seem out of control, but it knows exactly what it’s doing. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloDec 10, 2014
If it merits no other superlative, Mommy is unquestionably the most hyperactive movie of the year. It begins at a fever pitch and maintains that degree of in-your-face intensity for well over two hours, to either exhilarating or exhausting effect, depending on one’s tolerance level. Read full review
67
HitfixGuy LodgeMay 24, 2014
If Mommy counts as a slight creative step back, and I would argue that it is, it's at least an elegant and purposeful one. Read full review
66
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeJan 24, 2015
The three lead performances cut through Dolan’s showier tendencies, creating relatable, empathetic characters; we share in their glimmer of optimism for a better future, making it all the more painful when reality comes crashing down. Read full review
63
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeJan 21, 2015
Dolan embraces passion and melodrama to a refreshing degree, and Dorval and Clément are terrific. But Mommy can be exhausting; the structure and plot rhythms are all over everywhere. A montage to “Wonderwall” (every last note of it) seems to sum up the movie; too much, but exhilarating all the same. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChris CabinJan 21, 2015
When Xavier Dolan's tremendous empathy for the abandoned, medicated, and economically stressed is given full visual flight, it's easy to get lost in the rush. Read full review
60
The DissolveScott TobiasJan 22, 2015
Mommy puts all its personal baggage on the table like Ally Sheedy emptying her purse in The Breakfast Club, and Dolan is to be admired for sharing so much of himself, and doing it with such evident passion. But it isn’t enough for an artist simply to share—he has to shape, too. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 24, 2014
It comes at you baying and rattling like an early Pedro Almodóvar comedy, threaded through with an infectious love of full-throttle melodrama, and flinging its energy right back to the cheap seats, thanks to Dolan's customarily zippy design choices. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 6, 2015
I suppose the relationship is Oedipal or primal or something or other, but mostly it’s just an excuse for Dolan to stage a series of gaudy shout-fests. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenFeb 4, 2015
Mommy bursts with so much frenzied, turbulent energy that it really only makes sense when looked at as the fifth feature film by a 25-year-old moviemaker. Québécois Xavier Dolan is one of those enfants terribles of the cinema, making and sometimes acting in films that court attention. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJan 23, 2015
Willfully over determined and perversely stylized. Read full review
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