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 ...
17 year old Jakob is a very shy teenager who lives with his father and his ailing grandfather. He starts working in the pig meat factory with his father and at nights he goes to these gay chat rooms to chat and watch porn and feel little bit alive. Jacob is struggling with an anxiety disorder that makes life increasingly difficult for him. One night, he meets 26-year old Kristian on gay chat and after a few times, they both decide to meet in person. The rest of the film is about the interactions between these 2 men, which I felt was an interesting take on reality v/s your imagination. Is Kristian real, is he part of Jakob's imagination, is there some link to Jakob's anxiety is what's tried to be shown but as an audience I didn't get any of those answers, sadly.
There is a very strong gay undercurrent. In his dreams Jakob runs through this beautiful woods, almost naked. Yes, he is also looking for sex or maybe feel of it in the virtual world, but I am still not sure what was the whole issue that he had since childhood. Whats this fear that keeps looming over him. Like I said above, the film was going interesting in the first half but post Kristian's entry and their interactions, it just goes into this weird zone. You know Jakob is detached but why? and why does Kristian excite him? Whats the connection between them? What was the whole childhood piece in the end. I am still not sure. Kristian was just an enigma, albeit a good looking one. But in absence of proper character development; its hard to say if the actors were good in their craft or not!
This film had no substance but had too much style. If you like punky, different, art house-ish cinema that keeps you thinking for rest of the week, go for it, otherwise avoid. (3/10)
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