The movie contains an epic scope that feels out of sync with the smallness of its plot; you get the idea by the first act and then Laurence's world simply hangs there for another two hours like a slo-mo shrug.
The clearest achievement of Dolan’s typically self-indulgent eye-popper comes in equating its gender-bending protagonist’s metamorphoses with those in any relationship that lasts for years.
In a contest between passion and pretension, Laurence Anyways reaches a kind of draw. What holds up here isn’t Dolan’s overly decorative filmmaking, but what he gets from his performers.