A thousand miles from his character Jon Snow in “Game of Thrones”, Kit Harrington delivers an astonishing performance in “My Life with John F. Donovan”, the English-language film by Xavier Dolan. Watch on Prime Video.
After seven films that have won awards in numerous festivals around the world, Quebecer Xavier Dolan realizes a dream: to shoot a feature film in English with an international cast based on an original screenplay that he himself co-wrote. Kit Harington – fresh from Game of Thrones -, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Michael Gambon… This is, in a few names, the cast that the filmmaker managed to bring together for My Life with John F. Donovan.
The story follows the epistolary relationship between a very popular TV series star in the United States and a young schoolboy in England. When this secret correspondence comes to light, the actor’s destiny collapses and his public image with it. Then begins the time of introspection, the quest for identity and the quest for truth for the main character.
With its twisted plot, My Life with John F. Donovan is undoubtedly its director’s most ambitious project. The film has many characters, two temporalities and three different locations. Everything resembles a fresco in the style of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia – which notably served as inspiration.
Metafilms Jacob Tremblay in “My Life with John F. Donovan”.
During its presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), My Life with John F. Donovan was completely rejected by American critics. THE Hollywood Reporter talks about a “heavy and too long” drama; THE New York Times of an “artificial structure” and “forced speech”; while Variety judges the filmmaker’s approach “self-centered”.
In France, the critical reception is more positive, but the admissions are disappointing – just under 340,000 spectators travel to see the film in theaters. If it is the unloved of an often celebrated filmography, My Life with John F. Donovan nonetheless remains a work which addresses a delicate subject: the injunctions made to a public figure who has no other choice than to hide to fulfill the expectations – and fantasies – of society.
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Kit Harington in “My Life with John F. Donovan.”
A closeted actor, the character of John F. Donovan is part of a debate which still continues to be talked about today: the place of homosexual people in cinema – on France 2. The fate of the hero played by Kit Harington refers to that of the great cinema icons who, throughout their lives, had to hide to work.
My Life with John F. Donovan is still available on Prime Video.