Xavier Dolan was only 24 when he made Tom at the Farm. Think about that. Most people that age are still figuring out how to file taxes or keep a houseplant alive, but Dolan was busy adapting Michel Marc Bouchard's play into a psychological thriller that feels like a panic attack filmed in 35mm. It is a weird, sweaty, and deeply uncomfortable movie. If you go into it expecting a standard "grief drama," you are going to be severely blindsided by something much darker.
The film follows Tom, a hip Montreal ad executive who travels to the middle of nowhere for the funeral of his boyfriend, Guillaume. When he gets there, he realizes Guillaume’s mother, Agathe, has no idea her son was gay. Enter Francis. He's Guillaume’s brother, a violent, repressed farmer who forces Tom into a twisted game of roleplay to keep the secret buried.
The Stockholm Syndrome of Tom at the Farm
Most thrillers rely on jump scares. Tom at the Farm (or Tom à la ferme) relies on the crushing weight of isolation. You watch Tom, played by Dolan himself with bleached-blonde hair that looks increasingly frayed, slowly lose his grip on reality. It’s basically a masterclass in how grief can make you vulnerable to the worst kind of people.
Francis, played with a terrifying, unpredictable energy by Pierre-Yves Cardinal, isn't just a villain. He’s a force of nature. He bullies Tom. He chokes him in a cornfield. He makes him do farm chores until his hands bleed. And the weirdest part? Tom stays. He doesn't just stay; he starts to lean into the abuse. It is a brutal look at trauma bonding. You’re sitting there screaming at the screen for him to just get in his car and drive, but the movie makes you understand why he can’t.
The farm itself feels like a character. Cinematographer André Turpin uses the aspect ratio to literally squeeze the frame during moments of high tension. It feels claustrophobic even though it's set in the wide-open countryside. You've got these massive, grey Quebec skies that look like they're about to collapse on the characters. It’s beautiful, sure, but it’s the kind of beauty that feels like a threat.
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Why the Cornfield Scene Still Haunts Me
If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene. The "tango" in the barn is one thing, but the chase through the cornfield is where the movie shifts from a drama to a full-blown slasher-adjacent nightmare. The sound design here is incredible. You hear every rustle of the stalks. Every breath.
Gabriel Yared’s score is doing some heavy lifting here, too. It’s orchestral and grand, which feels almost too big for a small farm story, but that dissonance is exactly what makes it work. It feels like a Hitchcock film set in a muddy barn. Honestly, the way Dolan handles the tension is better than most veteran directors. He understands that what you don't see is way scarier than what you do.
The Problem with Translation and Secrets
One of the biggest themes in Tom at the Farm is the "longue distance" between the city and the country. It’s not just miles. It’s a complete breakdown of language. Tom speaks the language of advertising—polished, fake, urban. Francis speaks the language of the land and of repressed violence.
- The mother, Agathe, is kept in the dark through a series of elaborate lies.
- Tom starts writing fake letters from a "girlfriend" named Sarah to appease her.
- When the real Sarah actually shows up, the movie turns into a chaotic farce that borders on horror.
Lies are like a virus in this house. They rot everything they touch. You see it in the way the house is decorated—it’s frozen in time, a shrine to a son who didn't actually exist in the way his mother thinks he did.
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Realism vs. Stylization
Critics often talk about Dolan as being "too much." He likes slow-motion. He likes loud music. He likes stylized close-ups. But in Tom at the Farm, that excess is channeled into the psychology of the characters. When Tom is running, the camera is right in his face. You see the sweat. You see the terror.
There's a specific realism to the farm work that grounds the melodrama. Calving a cow? That’s real. Shoveling manure? Real. It creates this tactile, gritty atmosphere that makes the more "art-house" flourishes feel earned. It’s not just a movie about feelings; it’s a movie about the physical toll of lying.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Ending
I've seen a lot of people argue about whether Tom "won" or not. Without spoiling the literal final frame, the ending isn't a victory. It’s an escape, but a hollow one. The city of Montreal is presented at the end with the song "Going to a Town" by Rufus Wainwright, and it looks just as cold and alien as the farm did.
The trauma doesn't stay at the farm. It’s in Tom now. That’s the real horror of the movie. You don’t just walk away from a relationship like the one between Tom and Francis and go back to your latte-sipping life. It changes your DNA.
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Actionable Insights for Your Next Rewatch
If you’re going to sit down and watch this (or rewatch it), pay attention to these specific things to get the most out of it:
- Watch the Aspect Ratio: Notice when the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen start moving. Dolan uses this to mimic the feeling of a panic attack. It’s subtle until it’s not.
- Listen to the Soundscape: The wind in the grass isn't just background noise. It’s mixed to feel like whispering.
- Contrast the Clothing: Tom’s leather jacket vs. Francis’s work gear. It’s a visual representation of two worlds colliding that can never coexist.
- Research the Play: Michel Marc Bouchard wrote the original play, and seeing how Dolan adapted it from a stage-bound story to a cinematic landscape explains a lot of the tight, dialogue-heavy tension.
Tom at the Farm is currently available on various streaming platforms depending on your region, often found on MUBI or Kanopy if you have a library card. It’s a essential viewing for anyone who thinks they’ve seen everything the thriller genre has to offer. Go watch it, but maybe keep the lights on and don't plan a trip to a rural B&B immediately after.
To truly understand the impact of the film, compare it to Dolan's other works like Mommy or It's Only the End of the World. You'll see a director who is obsessed with the idea of the "unhappy family," but in this movie, he proves he can handle that theme with the precision of a surgeon and the intensity of a nightmare. Look for the motifs of "the missing person" and how the absence of Guillaume defines every single interaction between the survivors.