French Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan generally works at a super-fast pace. Still, it’s been three years since his last film, “Matthias & Maxime,” which is almost a lifetime in Dolan years. Now 33 years of age—yes, the precocious filmmaker started young and already has eight features under his belt—returns with his first TV mini-series, “The Night Where Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up,” (titled “The Night Logan Woke Up” for English-Language territories) which arrives worldwide in 2023, according to Dolan, who posted the trailer on Instagram (the series is already out in Quebec and soon out on Canal+ in France).
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Based on Michel Marc Bouchard’s play of the same name and divided into five one-hour episodes, “The Night When Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up” features a world-renowned thanatologist (Julie Le Breton) who returns to her family to embalm her mother and who thereby reunites with her brothers who she hadn’t seen her for years. Old family secrets will eventually surface.
Here’s the official synopsis:
In the early 1990s, Mimi and her brother Jules are best friends with Logan. Together, they form an inseparable trio. The boys are on the baseball team and just won the regional championship and Mimi dreams of a life in the theatre; maybe the three will end up living in the United States one day and “”get the hell outta here”” … Who knows what the future holds? But in October 1991, Logan rapes Mimi; he’s nearing his 17th birthday and she’s 14. The two families are shattered. The entire village knows. Nothing will ever be the same. 30 years later, Mimi has become a reputable thanatologist and travels home to take care of her mother’s corpse, as requested by the latter in her will. She’s reunited with her estranged brothers, left behind decades back. Soon after, secrets and spite buried deep in the past resurface, sending them on an unstoppable pursuit of reconciliation.
“I had dreamed for a long time of directing a series but also of making a thriller,” Dolan recently said in an interview with Le Journal de Montreal. “Psychological thrillers and suspense are probably my favorite thing to watch in movies and on TV. These are codes that I admire. With Anne [Dorval], we always call each other to recommend good thrillers to watch. I also think that I did this series a little by telling myself that it was the kind of show that we would love to watch together, my friends and I if we were not part of it.”
Dolan apparently had a big budget and an unheard-of 82 days to shoot the series, and he was pleased. “Yes, we had money and time to do the series,” he said. “But I think the size of the budget is reflected on screen, especially in the sets and costumes, he explains. It’s a series that unfolds over two eras, 2019 and the end of the 1990s. The idea that we sold to the people of Club illico from the start was to make a series that would allow us to travel talent from here and present it in such a way as to position itself internationally. In a rather daring and generous way, they have embarked on the project by giving us the means to achieve our ambitions.”
Dolan also adapted Bouchard’s play “Tom at the Farm” into a series in 2013. “The Night When Laurier Gaudreault Woke Up,” on top of Julie LeBreton, the series also stars Dolan himself, Patrick Hivon, Magalie Lépine Blondeau, Éric Bruneau, Julianne Côté, and more.
Hans Zimmer is one of the composers on the series, and he teamed up with David Fleming to make the music. “By working with him, I discovered an absolutely extraordinary person,” Dolan said. “He impressed me with his great generosity, passion, humor, and passion. A friendship developed between us in a dazzling way.”
No word on a U.S. release date yet, but 2023 is around the corner, and who knows where the series could premiere in North America. Watch the trailer below.

La série de Xavier Dolan, La Nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est réveillé, a été lancée au Canada. Elle arrivera prochainement sur Canal+ ?Bande-annonce ?pic.twitter.com/z124eqkn9p— Jeremy M. (@JeremyMingot) November 28, 2022