With nothing but iron bridges separating their land, Canada and America are essentially neighbours. Sharing mountains, lakes and artificial cheese flavoured pasta that would make Italians sob into their linguine, one could assume they also share similar cultures and laws. Xavier Dolan‘s dark thriller negates this theory. Instead of loveable cavemen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, imagine the combatant twosome Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders. Canada plays the cordial do-gooder and America the erratic couch potato but instead of conflicting over something more austere than garden tools, this film addresses homosexuality.

Adapted from Michel Marc Bouchard’s play, Dolan’s fourth feature film is an interesting yet undeniably slow portrayal of homophobia. We are introduced to Tom (Dolan) as he attends the funeral of late boyfriend Guillaume (Caleb Landry Jones) in the Québec countryside. Montrealer Tom immediately feels out of place on his lover’s farm surrounded by cows, corn-fields and secrecy. A stranger in the eyes of grieving mother Agathe (Lise Roy), he is then physically and emotionally threatened by Guillaume’s older brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) into harbouring his sexuality.

With an array of American references throughout the film, it’s clear Dolan is pointing a neon arrow towards the land of freedom; dressing the threatening figure in a stars and stripes jacket and referring to him as a redneck being the most apparent. Canada proudly boasts its reign as the fourth in line to legalise same-sex marriage, America is yet to officiate such a law. As an openly gay Canadian, amidst the current fight for the Alberta government to recognise the validity of homosexual marriage, surely it is no coincidence that Dolan stars as the protagonist. With merely photographic acknowledgement of Guillaume, the film cleverly mirrors this ignorance. Though, as narrow-minded as the US can be, the absence of Francis in this film would be fatally evident. Using the music of Rufus Wainright, is Dolan ‘tired of America.’?