The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

I thought it was ok overall as the story started out interesting, but never really seemed to lead anywhere with the characters and by the end of it, I still wasn't really sure who John Donovan was.

Tried my best to like this because of Kit but it was all over the place.

The life and death of a closet gay book writer celebrity and the young boy who tells his tale of the man who gave him the courage to be himself.

Lots of really good actors trying to make a schmaltzy script work. Cringeworthy at times.

The film is complicated, too complicated! Long, very long! There is little love! Good ending, and good lines of letter at the end of the film. But still, it's boringly contrived and not original!

The film tried too hard to be profound - and instead was simply boring.

Splendid film and acting. It may be difficult to understand for those simple-minded people who don't get the underneath details and messages from the film, so it doesn't really surprise me those people got frustrated and talked bad about it, also, being an unexpected gay story, it could have been an unwanted thing for those homophobic people out there.

This was okay. It was interesting to see Kit Harington in a very different role than his John Snow in Game Of Thrones.

It was embarassing to watch all this non sense cliché. With a cast like this I am shocked how bad this movie was.

Yet another movie to shout its one-note message about gender confusion and celebrity. Xavier Dolan's first English-speaking movie is so chaotic in its narrative, the first half appears to belong to a totally different film. Its choppy, almost amateurish editing leaves the viewer irritated, while attempting to grasp what motivates his somewhat boring characters. His women tend to come across as either hopelessly lost or superficially meddlesome - while his men don't seem to project any direction, apart from bullying or same-sex attraction. There are moments of attempted profound statements regarding superficial relationships and the press, yet even these come across as heavy-handed philosophy and pretentious. As moviemakers are now getting to be younger, it looks like audiences can expect more and more gender confusion and PC virtue signaling. Some cinematography is nicely set up but it's mostly foiled by music selections that tend to feel like they also belong to another movie. Gabriel Yared's original score is as usual, quite lush but songs chosen to accompany other selected scenes are out of touch with the overall feel. Hopefully, some future young storytellers will get over their personal obsessions with their inverted sexuality and perhaps mature enough to also consider the interests of the wider community.