The Canadian prodigy goes mainstream with this all-star drama.
Xavier Dolan is one of those annoyingly talented youngsters, having already directed no less than seven feature films while still in his twenties. His latest, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, is the Quebecois filmmaker's first entry in English language cinema, boasting an all-star cast, but it's had a troubled history, with Dolan editing his movie to such an extent that Jessica Chastain's much publicised role has been completely excised.
Surviving the cut are Kit Harington, Jacob Tremblay, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Thandie Newton, Kathy Bates, Sarah Gadon and Michael Gambon. Harington plays an actor who finds himself in the spotlight when his correspondence with a child pen pal (Tremblay) comes under suspicion.
The Death and Life of John F. Donovan doesn't have a UK/ROI release date yet, but you can check out the first trailer, courtesy of French distributor Mars Films, below.
The official synopsis reads:
“The Death and Life of John F. Donovan,” takes place in the early 2000s and centers on the tribulations of an American TV star in his late twenties (Harington) and his correspondence with Rupert Turner, a young actor-to-be living with his mother in England. Their lives take dramatic turns when the existence of their pen pal relationship is publicly exposed, eliciting the most ill-founded assumptions, and sending Donovan in a vertical downfall. A decade later, the young actor recollects his relationship with his past idol over the course of an interview.