Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of a man, called Tom, who pays an unannounced visit to his late boyfriend's farm in a small town in Quebec. He meets the brother who is violent and widely feared by the whole town. Yet, Tom is attracted to danger and stays at the farm.This story is really captivating. It has so many subtle clues as to what the psychologically disturbed characters are thinking, which explain their behaviour. It drives viewers to think deeply about the reasons for their seemingly inexplicable behaviour, which is engaging and thrilling. Tom is clearly very attracted to being abused, and his psychological state is portrayed vividly by the film. There are some really dangerous moments in the film, making it thrilling. I really enjoyed watching "Tom at the Farm", and I look forward to watching other films by the same director.

Red_Identity This was really something else. I had never seen a film from Xavier Dolan so I didn't know what to really expect, but this is that type of film that you're not sure just how good it really is, or if it even is good, but it's impossible to turn away. When all is said and done, its narrative is actually pretty thin, pretty simple, but it has a sort of intense, maddening tone with a bunch of scenes that come off both so weird and uncomfortable. Again, this makes it feel like a pretty distinctive experience, but once it's over the spell was sort of broken. It reminds me a lot of Stranger by the Lake in that regard, feels like it's great while watching it but after watching it you're not quite sure what you saw was of merit, but unlike that film, this one didn't leave such a bad taste in my mouth and was a lot more entertaining. Maybe not a great film, but a very interesting one at least, and it's pretty admirable that someone so young would do this. The last 15 minutes do take away a lot of its intrigue though.And maybe it says something about me, but I found Pierre Ives Cardinal so unbelievably sexy. So, so wrong but I just couldn't help it.

Francisco Carmona I just watched this movie as part of the 56th Muestra International de Cine at the Cineteca Nacional, in Mexico City. As I noted in the synopsis, the director is also the protagonist, something that I don't consider sane for a movie. But the storyline seemed attractive. And my intuition was right: an excessive use of extreme close-ups, not helping to the narrative, but making it boring and exasperating. And yes, most of the close-ups, specially the long-lasting ones, were on the main character. I don't know the original text (I know it's a theatrical text), to make a difference between failures in the original story and the version of the director. The characters are interesting. They're strong. But I couldn't understand the basis of their actions. There is a scene when characters are doing this, and the next they're changing, and then they're going back, and then they make a new thing... The only well-presented character is a secondary one, appearing as much as 15 minutes. The actress in the role of the mother makes a very good work, but it's diluted by the failures in the story and the lack of strength in the work of the co-protagonists. At the end, I found the director being the protagonist, also made the selection of the music, the scenery, the dialogs (interestingly, the playwright helped with the dialogs). And it made sense with the result. A fragmented work, a complete lack of unity.

reefrunner19 A very subjective review, and I hate having to put down a film (as an aspiring film director myself), but I would just want to present my personal view of the film, hopefully without ruining it for any of Dolan's fans or anyone who worked on the film. WARNING: This review may be harsh.I saw it at the BFI London Film Festival back in October of 2013. The second film I saw at the festival (following Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity"). Having heard of Xavier Dolan's apparently impressive skills vastly out-spanning his young years, I entered the theatre with much anticipation, and excitement given my immense love for psychological thrillers. Unfortunately, I could not be more disappointed with a film than I was with "Tom At The Farm".FAR too long for the slow pace of the story, I feel that the narrative does not amount to anything. The audience is made to wait an hour and forty-five minutes, and is aching for Tom to just leave the farm, which when he finally does, everything in the story is left completely unresolved. A waste of time in my opinion. An agonising wait with little to no character development or resolution to conflicts to keep the audience interested. "Tom At The Farm" utterly failed to keep me engaged, and just as much as I was dying for Tom to just leave the farm, I was dying to leave the theatre.