THE core of Francophone Canadian writer/director Xavier Dolan’s film is a trio of characters each labouring under a burden influencing their daily lives.

Around them, Dolan has built a story that presses many buttons and crosses many i’s and dots many t’s en route to a resolution that we have long expected but feared that narrative convention might fail to deliver.

Many would regard Diane aka Die (Anne Dorval), three years a widow, as white trash, controlling a powerful carnality as she tries to make an honest living in menial jobs. Her beautiful 15-year-old son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) who suffers from ADHD has been in juvenile detention because of violent outbursts. She has decided to home teach him until he’s 16 when a different law will incarcerate him under a stronger regime.

In the house across the street, high-school teacher Kyla (Suzanne Clément), attractive in a down-played way, on sabbatical to deal with a stutter resulting from pressures that she’s having difficulty managing, welcomes Die’s invitation to mind Steve while Die’s at work.

The love between Die and Steve is real. As the corny Jewish mother joke puts it: “Oedipus schmedipus, who cares so long as he loves his mother?” That’s the problem. Whenever a possible suitor looms on Die’s horizon, Steve’s jealousy goes ballistic.

“Mommy” is handsome, unabashed in its vocabulary, projected at 4:3 for much of its 139 minutes, expanded to widescreen for passages that get inside characters’ heads rather than observe the reality of the moment. Not a chick flick, the conflicts in its powerful, challenging, dramatically innovative plot may be relatively low-grade but its tensions are compelling.

At Palace Electric