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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...

Petunia

This film kept reminding me so much of one of my favorite films "The Family Stone" But in terms of what a nice film that was, this film fails to come close. At best I would call this film as poor man's "Family Stone". I think the filmmakers were quite confused on whether to make this film a drama or comedy. There were btw and pieces of both and it was becoming very hard for me to see if I should be taking things seriously and with a touch of humour.

The film is about Petunia family. Husband and wife going through their marital menopause, they have 3 kids: Michael, Adrian and Charlie. Cute but awkward Charlie is celibate by choice and has problems with intimacy. He wears a rubber band on his wrist to control sexual urges. He meets the cute George who he gets an instant liking for at his brother's Michael's wedding to Viviana. We slowly see that Michael and Vivi do not really love each other and they have all sort of issues. The third (middle) brother Adrian is a sex addict.  Charlie and George get along well and start hanging out, and Charlie soon falls head over heels in love with George only to get the chock of his life later. He finds out that George is married. Although George's wife is ok with open relationship and ready to do anything for George's happiness, her and Charlie become really close. At the other end we have Vivi getting pregnant and not knowing whose child it really is. Adrian is trying to fight and get over his sex turned love addiction. There is tension in family and everyone is dealing with their own issues and then magically a few months later everything falls in place and things are hunky dory.

Only if the makers had not tried to incorporate all ingredients from one of my fav film, I may actually have liked the film. They tried to foci on each and every person's problem thereby robbing the audience of satisfaction of connecting with any single member from the family. It kept moving all way too fast. The acting was pretty decent by principally everyone but there were so many things just taken for granted and not really answered. The whole thing between George and Charlie was totally unbelievable and non practical. Adrian meeting a plump girl to get over his addiction; my reaction was WTF! The production values were high and everything going in favor except the script.

I love dysfunctional family movies but this one was completely lost in what it actually wanted to be by the end of it. (5/10)

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