Sixteen-year-old Hubert (21-year-old writer-director Xavier Dolan) hates his mother. Well, he loves her, and anyone who hurt her would get an ass-kicking from him, but he can’t take more than a few seconds in her presence before he starts insulting and belittling her, screaming as histrionically as Mommie Dearest. The messy way she eats, her tacky clothes—how could anyone put up with it? The title is intriguing; the summary somewhat promising. But the execution? (No pun, for no mother is physically harmed during the film.) It’s one-note and increasingly unbearable. Hubert, like many teens, is struggling with something that could reasonably fuel his rage. But his wild swings between anger and over-the-top lovey-doviness toward sa mère (Anne Dorval) get weird and indulgent (especially considering that Dolan claims the work is semiautobiographical), and no amount of Gus Van Sant stylization can keep you from wanting to tell Hubert to shut the hell up already.