A few months after Rock'N Roll, his last production, Guillaume Canet returns to the cinema, this time as an actor. He plays a father distraught by the disappearance of his son, in the middle of the alpine winter…
Mon Garçon is a film that stands out in the landscape of French cinema. Rare are the French films to have such a worked and tense atmosphere.Christian Carion's new film is a real success and one of the best thrillers of the year.
Carion succeeds in something that is unfortunately underused in French cinema: succeeding in making the provincial landscape (that of the Alps here) threatening, mysterious and disturbing. Engulfed in snow, nature is unwelcoming. The character of Guillaume Canet is here completely lost, both in his mind and in the landscape. A loss of bearings that characterizes the confusion of the character. Feeling accentuated by the music, powerful and heady.
The character beautifully portrayed by Canet is a man who is becoming increasingly paranoid. We see him lose control of his nerves and no longer trust anyone. Each character is a potential kidnapper in his eyes. This pushes the worried father to become more and more violent. A blowtorch torture session will be remembered for a long time. Outside Canet, we find Mélanie Laurent, impeccable in the role of the mother, even if she really appears only ten minutes.
My Boy is therefore an excellent thriller about paranoia, which wonders how far a man is able to plunge into madness. Because yes, the film is violent and merciless, driven by the urgency, panic and anger of the father. An unglorified violence, which is shown in all its brutality and without any form of glamour.
In short, by making the choice to make us follow in the footsteps of a lost and disoriented father, Carion allows the viewer to identify with the character. However, the latter is not perfect either, since we learn that he has neither more nor less abandoned his family in favor of his work. Unfortunately, for My Boy to be a truly great film, Carion and his co-writer would have had to avoid creating so many tracks without solving them. Admittedly, this is effective in creating suspense , but makes pschit at the time of resolution, since only the main plot is resolved. No other is explained, which makes theviewer remain hungry, because of missing elements in the scenario. This gives the impression of a hole in the script in order to create anxiety and suspense artificially. Fortunately, this is compensated by the excellence of the realization, which is effective enough to grab the audience from start to finish.
Mon Garçon is an excellent thriller that stands out in the landscape of current French cinema, with its anxiety-provoking atmosphere, its plot catchy enough to keep the viewer in tension throughout the film. And this despite the secondary elements barely mentioned. However, his excellent achievement and the performance of Guillaume Canet allow to forgive his mistakes and make Mon Garçon a very good moment that is worth the cost of his ticket.
Trailer
