Matthias & Maxime

Matthias & Maxime (2019) is Xavier Dolan's drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Two childhood friends agree to appear in a student short film, and the director asks them to kiss on camera. That single take quietly unsettles something neither man can put back.

Afterward, an awkwardness lingers between Matthias and Maxime that neither can shake. Matthias has a career, a girlfriend and a settled life in Montreal. Maxime is days away from leaving the country for work, a birthmark across his face marking him like a sign of the change ahead. Inside their tight circle of old friends, where everyone still drinks and jokes like before, the two suddenly have no idea what they are to each other.

Dolan shot the film in his native Quebec and plays Maxime himself. It screened in the main competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. There's less visual flash here than in his early work, and far more silence and things left unsaid. It's a restrained, tender study of a feeling too frightening to name aloud — best for viewers who love Dolan and quiet coming-of-age stories. Stream Matthias & Maxime (2019) online on iFILM.