Xavier Dolan is contemplating "retiring" from cinema. Maybe he’ll pull a Malick and we won’t see him for the next 20 years.
“I don’t really want to do this job anymore. I'm tired. We are in 2022, and the world has changed drastically. Me, in that world, I no longer necessarily feel the need to tell stories and to relate to myself. I want to take time to be with my friends and family. I want to shoot commercials and build myself a house in the country one day when I have enough money saved. I don't say that in a sad way at all. I just want to live something else, other experiences.”
Dolan has a limited series he wrote and directed, titled “La nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est réveillé,” premiering in Canada and France this coming week.
“It is not insignificant that this series is a reflection on life, death, mourning, redemption, the family. It is a fairly global and existential work. And maybe that's my way of saying goodbye for a little while..."
If you are Xavier Dolan and your last three films have failed critically, then what should your next move be?
Dolan has been a polarizing figure for many cinephiles. After surprising the film world, in his mid-20s to boot, with well-received fare such as “Laurence Anyways,” “Mommy,” and "Tom at the Farm,” his last there films have not been good at all.
It all started with 2016's "It's Only the End of the World," a film that won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, but not without being dubbed one of the worst movies to ever be awarded at the festival. Sure, many French audiences, and some critics, dug it, but the overall consensus outside of that country wasn’t good.
To make things worse, Dolan followed it up with his first English-language film, "The Death and Life of John F. Donovan," which turned out to be a disasterpiece of the highest-order. What do you make of a movie that completely wipes clean a Jessica Chastain performance from its final cut? Then came 2019’s “Matthias and Maxine,” another unwatchable movie.
Do I believe Dolan is actually retiring? Of course not. He probably just needs to take time off, regroup and reassess.
Netflix and Skydance Animation have also called it quits. The two sides announced Monday that they're ending the animated film deal struck back in 2023, framing it as a mutual decision.