Tom at the Farm

“You Can Kiss My Narcissistic Ass”: The Messy, Twisted Real-World Drama Around Tom at the Farm

Bleached hair, cow shit, and psychosexual mind games weren’t the only chaotic elements orbiting Tom at the Farm. While the film itself stayed relatively scandal-free on set, its enfant terrible creator, Xavier Dolan, was busy turning the off-screen narrative into its own thriller. Let’s hoe this field of gossip.

Scandals & Controversies: Xavier vs. The Hollywood Machine

The Hollywood Reporter Feud of Legends

When The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney panned Tom at the Farm out of Venice, calling it a sinister thriller wrapped in “auteurial self-adulation,” Dolan did not take it lying down. He fired off a now-infamous tweet at the outlet’s movie account: “You can kiss my narcissistic ass.” The tweet was later deleted, but not before critics, academics and fans screengrabbed it and lovingly filed it under “reasons we stan chaotic directors.” The Montreal Gazette later summarized the clash as Dolan “hitting back” at THR over the rough review .

Baby Enfant Terrible, Big Controversy Energy

Around the same time Tom at the Farm was in post-production, Dolan was already at the center of a firestorm over his music video for Indochine’s “College Boy.” The ultra-graphic anti-bullying clip — featuring a teen crucified by classmates — sparked outrage in France, with talk of censorship and bans for its violent imagery . The video had journalists calling him provocative and “under fire,” which only amplified the polarizing buzz when Tom at the Farm arrived.

On-Set & Behind-the-Scenes Weirdness

Director… Without a License

In a move that feels extremely “Tom making bad choices,” Dolan reportedly didn’t have a driver’s license while shooting those tense car scenes. Crew members had to hide in the passenger seat, back seat, even the trunk during driving shots — and were genuinely scared every time he got behind the wheel. That nervous energy you feel in the car sequences? Not all acting.

The Pen Fetish

That blue pen Tom uses to write his funeral eulogy? Not just a random prop. Dolan personally loves that exact, now-discontinued model so much he ordered an industrial quantity from the manufacturer so he’d never run out. He insists on using that one type of blue pen, period. Psychosexual thriller meets stationery kink. ^[6]

Keeping It in the Family

The gruff bar owner? That’s Manuel Tadros — Dolan’s real-life father. Casting your dad as the guy serving booze while your character spirals into rural queer trauma is a very specific brand of nepotism. ^[6]

From Stage to Screen, No Outsiders Allowed

Lise Roy (terrifying mom Agathe) and Evelyne Brochu (fake girlfriend Sarah) were both in the original stage production of Tom à la ferme. Roy’s performance on stage impressed Dolan so much he essentially promised her the movie role after seeing her in the play — and delivered. ^[6]

Music Meltdowns & Creative Drama

From “No Score” to “Spray Music Everywhere”

Dolan originally wanted Tom at the Farm to be nearly music-free — all eerie silence, all the time. Then he got into the edit and did a total 180, admitting he ended up “spraying the entire picture with music, everywhere” until every scene had score.

Leveling Up With Gabriel Yared

To push the film’s thriller vibe, Dolan brought in heavyweight composer Gabriel Yared (yes, the Oscar-winning composer of The English Patient). It was the first time he hired a “real” composer instead of DIY-ing it, and he later gushed that hearing Yared’s tracks made him finally “feel like a true director.” ^[7] Very “I’m just a boy, standing in front of an Academy Award winner, asking him to score my gay farm thriller.”

Fans, Tumblr, and the Endless Queer Spiral

The Stockholm Syndrome Discourse That Wouldn’t Die

On Reddit’s film circles and Tumblr’s GIF-heavy fandom side, viewers have obsessively dissected Tom and Francis’s relationship: is Tom broken down and brainwashed, or did he fall for his abuser? Long threads pick apart specific scenes — the underpass choking, the dancing, the barn confrontations — to argue that Tom is emotionally “replaced” as both lover and brother, and that the ending implies a perverse attachment rather than escape .

Tumblr’s Tom-Farm Aesthetic Cult

Tumblr tags are full of looping GIFs of Francis pinning Tom to walls, whispered lines like “You smell like him,” and breathless captions about the homoerotic/homophobic tension. Some fan blogs practically turned the film into an aesthetic moodboard of bruises, cornfields, and repressed desire, fueling a mini cult status years after release .

**The Quiet Tea: What’s Not There**

• No reliable reports surfaced of on-set screaming matches, cast hookups, or dramatic breakups tied directly to the Tom at the Farm shoot. Most gossip energy pooled around Dolan himself — his social media outbursts, his “narcissistic” persona, and his willingness to pick public fights with major outlets — rather than any traditional Hollywood-style set chaos. So the juiciest drama is less “co-stars feuded” and more “director declared war on a trade paper in 140 characters.”