In 'Tom a la Ferme', Canadian director Xavier Dolan creates a maximum of suspense with a minimum of resources. Three people in an isolated farmhouse, a secret shared by two of them and the psychotic behaviour of one of them - that's it. Despite the lack of action and the slow pacing, the story is so intense it gripped me from start to finish.

Tom is the lover of the recently deceased Guillaume, and visits Guillaume's mother and brother to attend the funeral. But Guillaume's mother doesn't know her son was gay, so the brother makes Tom act as if he was straight, and forces him to talk about an imaginary girlfriend. The brother doesn't hesitate to use violence in order to keep up the charade, and even immobilizes Tom's car so he can't leave. While secrets from the past are slowly uncovered, the situation becomes more and more unbearable for Tom.

More than once, this movie made me think about Hitchcock's best films. There is the very prominent soundtrack, complete with shrieking violins. Also, like Hitchcock, Dolan uses location as an essential element in the story. And there are small scenes that add to the unsettling atmosphere, like a dead cow being dragged away, a taxi driver who refuses to enter the driveway of the farmhouse, or the blood on the hands after the birth of a calf.

'Tom a la Ferme' is not perfect. It is rather slow, and some scenes are a bit strange. For example, Guilaume's mother bursts out in hysterical laughter after Tom quotes some perverse language from the imaginary girlfriend. But overall, this is impressive film making.

(By the way: there's a very good a cappella interpretation of Michel Legrand's 'Les Moulins de mon Coeur' during the first scene. It isn't listed on IMDb' soundtrack section, but apparently it's by Canadian actress/singer Kathleen Fortin).

Set in a lonely farm in Quebec, TOM A LA FERME concerns the inner life of the eponymous central character (Xavier Dolan) mourning the death of his lover. He goes to his lover's family's isolated farm for the funeral, and there encounters the mother (Lise Roy) and her other son (Pierre-Yves Cardinal),neither of whom were aware of the dead lover's sexuality.

The film concentrates on the gradual discovery by the family of their dead son's secret, and how it affects them. Francis is both horrified yet strangely affected; as the action unfolds, he develops an unnatural affection for Tom that is both sadistic and sexual. The mother seems to be unaware of what's happening around her, but perhaps she is just deliberately blinding herself to the truth as a means of self-protection. Tom finds himself imprisoned at the farm; even when his close acquaintance Sarah (Evelyne Brochu) comes to visit, he cannot contrive an effective escape.

TOM A LA FERME concentrates on the ways in which people conceal their private inclinations, even from their nearest and dearest, and the damage that actually causes them. This is especially true of Francis, who emerges from the film as a seriously disturbed character, masking his sexual inadequacies beneath a veil of strength. Yet the process of self-discovery for all the characters is an enabling one - so much so that when Tom finally escapes from the farm, he does not appear very happy to have done so. The film ends with a shot of him re-entering the city of Montreal, the lighted skyscrapers flashing by outside his car windows, with his face set in an expressionless gaze as he drives. It seems that 'freedom' for him is nothing more than a form of imprisonment; by extension, therefore, his imprisonment at the farm was an opportunity to discover some form of freedom.

Filmed on a series of bleak winter days in stark, washed-out colors, TOM A LA FERME is a searing psychological examination of sexualities and how they are often willfully concealed.

This cinematic baby of director/writer/actor Xavier Dolan is a moderately successful suspense film that is prevented from being more successful by its desire to be strange and enigmatic rather than forthright about its intentions.

Dolan plays a young gay man who visits the family of his recently deceased lover to attend the funeral. There, he finds himself adored by the oblivious mother who didn't know her son was gay, and hated by the crazy, violent brother who hates that his sibling was gay and intends to keep that knowledge from his mother at all costs. This plays out mostly as you would expect, with an increasing sense of claustrophobic dread. Why Dolan's character doesn't just leave this potentially dangerous situation is adequately explained through various plot devices, some of them imposed on him by external circumstances, some of them arising from his own internalized motivations. Dolan gives a very good performance, but the actor who plays the abusive antagonist is poorly cast, not menacing or threatening enough to be convincing. And a late-act plot development involving a fake female love interest for the dead brother does more to derail the movie than heighten its suspense.

Still, those looking for an off-kilter watch will probably be satisfied. This movie reminded much in tone of last year's release "Strangers by the Lake," though that is a much better film than this one.

Grade: B+