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 ...
The documentary walks us through lives of 5 different men, from different backgrounds and age groups and what goes on in their head while they enjoy an all-male week-long voyage from Lisbon to the Canary Islands in a ship that holds 2k plus passengers.. What do they expect from the cruise, what are they feeling emotionally and how was their overall experience. We meet Marek, Polish born but UK resident, extremely good looking but unsure of what to do with his charms. He is looking for the ideal love and partner and doesn’t believe in hook-ups. He is also very close to his mother. An Indian guy, living in Dubai, is overwhelmed with everything around him. He considers himself not an attractive man and is trying hard to fit in. He is so intimidated that he feels a bit depressive and mentions that he has never felt so lonely in his life ever. A Frenchman bound to wheelchair is our next guy. He is happily partnered and is grateful but can’t keep his eyes off from all the gorgeous men around him and wonders what it would be like to be single and be able to walk. We also meet Ramzi, a Palestinian guy who moved to Belgium for his personal safety, is now very very happy with his partner and also thankful that his partner os cancer-free. And then we have Martin, who’s living with HIV. His was the most underdeveloped character and we don’t know much about him. We see all these men moving from one costume party to another every day with music, (thankfully no drugs) and talking about their hopes and fears.
Their is talk about everything. The cliches of having the perfect body and feel and look young. You need to have either perfect dick or ass and every other part of the body is negotiable. But if you don’t have either of these , then you need to compensate for those by other means. Nothing serious is discussed because all we see is all-night dance parties that give way to flirting during the day time. What I liked was the fact that the film chose people from multiple ethnic background, different age groups and everyone dealing with a different issue per say. The subject were not cliched white or black men. The men are referred to as “buffet” being ready and how would you pick the food that you wanna eat. This documentary sadly doesn’t seem very interested in exploring the implications of the pronouncements that such individuals make.
Visually, this documentary is dream but content wise, I wish there was more focus. When the guy who never felt so lonely till he came to the cruise, suddenly says that its the best time he has ever had in life at the end; I feel something big is missing here and not all issues have been talked about. This would have have been a perfect setting to talk about the sky high expectations of being a muscled good-looking forever young gay man, which adds stress, anxiety and leads to depression in a lot of gay men. (4.5/10)
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