What is fun about all of this melodrama is how it is presented without a whiff of an ironic wink. The emotions may be operatic, but they are sincere. The torment is elongated, and yet it comes from a real place. It’s all unrequited yearnings, unexpressed desire, bodies quivering to touch each other, and yet not able to. This is sexy stuff. “Matthias & Maxime” feels a little bit like fanfic, where fans, desperate to make the subtext of their favorite work go text, write libraries of slashfic, imagining their faves finally hooking up. If you read slashfic, you’ll recognize all the tropes, not to mention the overuse of the pathetic fallacy. What good is an operatic emotion if rain doesn’t pour from the sky? Why yearn for your soulmate without autumn leaves swirling around you?
The women in “Matthias & Maxime” are mostly stock characters and negative stereotypes. The older women are shrieking cackling witches, and the younger women are either gratingly annoying or wet-blankets on the boys’ fun. “Matthias & Maxime” is unabashedly about “the boys,” and how they deal (or don’t deal) with the stuff swirling around in their relationships. Dolan approaches much of this voyeuristically: the camera peeks at the characters, or looks at them from a distance, through door and window frames. In one scene, the camera moves slowly away from the group cavorting in the rain before landing on a lit window, through which Matthias and Maxime can be clearly seen, in a tormented and passionate clutch. The fear of being looked at, exposed, seen is as powerful as the acknowledgment of how sexy it is to be looked at, exposed, seen.
The performances are fine, although nobody really emerges as a three-dimensional character. Harris Dickinson, excellent in “Beach Rats” and “Postcards from London,” appears as a client Matthias has been tasked to wine and dine. Dickinson’s character proclaims his heterosexuality loudly, boorishly, and yet his energy towards Matthias is undeniably flirtatious, causing Matthias, again, to tailspin. These scenes are very well-observed.
Dolan brings an interesting mix to the table as an actor. He is cocky, aware of his “affect,” he is both there and not quite there. He enjoys being on display, but he also withdraws, pulling people towards him. This, for me, is the most intriguing aspect of his work. “Matthias & Maxime” has its silliness—all that torment, all those swirling leaves—but it also taps into Dolan’s sensitivity to what turns him on, to what he finds erotic—all that peeking at each other, all those electric pauses and charged distances. In today’s sometimes sexless environment, it’s a breath of fresh air.
