I Killed My Mother

I Killed My Mother centers on Hubert, a sixteen-year-old living with his mother, Chantale, in the suburbs of Montreal after her divorce from his father. Hubert swings between love and contempt for her: her taste in clothes, the way she eats, her broken promises and her refusal to listen all irritate him, while she struggles with work, loneliness and the difficulty of letting her son become an adult. He records his turmoil in video diaries and confides in his teacher, Julie Cloutier, to whom he claims his mother is dead. He also begins a relationship with a fellow student, Antonin, and as the conflict at home hardens, his parents consider sending him to boarding school.

Xavier Dolan directed the film and wrote the screenplay, and also plays Hubert; Anne Dorval plays Chantale, with François Arnaud, Suzanne Clément, Patricia Tulasne and Niels Schneider among the credited cast of twenty-one. It was Dolan's first feature, released in 2009, and the earliest entry in a filmography that continues through Heartbeats, Laurence Anyways, Mommy, Tom at the Farm, It's Only the End of the World, Matthias & Maxime and The Death & Life of John F. Donovan. Carole Mondello, Daniel Morin and Dolan produced it for Mifilifilms.

The film runs 100 minutes. Audience ratings on IMDb and TMDB both stand at 7.4 out of 10, the first from roughly 33,000 votes and the second from about 1,182, and the critics' rating is also 7.4 out of 10 from 23 reviews, so critical and viewer assessments align closely.