Laurence Anyways · reception & legacy
2012 · Xavier Dolan
How Laurence Anyways has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
At Cannes 2012 it was the 23-year-old enfant terrible's 168-minute folly — relegated to Un Certain Regard and tagged as indulgent by many critics. A decade on it's routinely called Dolan's masterpiece and a landmark of 2010s queer cinema.
What's debated
The eternal Dolan fight — is the maximalist excess self-indulgence or the whole point — now layered with the debate over a cis director and cis actor telling a trans woman's story.
Its footprint
The slow-motion shot of clothes raining from the sky is one of the decade's most gif'd arthouse images, and the film's new-wave needle-drops made it a staple of 'best music moments in cinema' lists.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd darling and canon climber — the film even Dolan sceptics concede, and the consensus pick for his best.