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 ...
Gavin is dying of AIDS and is being helped day his close friend and business partner Anna and his caregiver friend Charlie. Also in the mix is Charlie's boyfriend Frank. It was Gavins wish for euthanasia to die with dignity, so the doctor is called and Gavin's mother, married brother Simon all show up. The euthanasia does not seem to be working and in desperation Charlie places a plastic bag over Gavin's head to hasten the requested death - a deed that will haunt Charlie and the rest at the bedside. Anna remains apparently calm in the immediate aftermath, tending to the 'funeral' arrangements according to Gavin's requests. But once the funeral is done, things start to fall apart. Simon stays back for a couple of days to take his brother's ashes back. Anna sublimates her loss by looking of human connection and starts having an affair with Simon. Charlie attempts to evade his guilt about his final assistance by anesthetizing himself with morphine elixir, cocaine, alcohol and barhopping. His behavior further distances his lover Frank and the latter ends the relationship. Anna take Simon to bed and to bars and to drugs all of which eventually awaken Simon to his infidelity to his wife and remind him to go back home. In the climax both Anna and Charlie realize that they are probably better off without each other. Their connection Gavin is no longer there to keep them glued.
The explorations of grief and the destruction of the friend group is what's the basis of the film. The first few minutes when the friends and family are gathered together watching Gavin die of morphine overdose (which doesn't work) settle stage of where the film is headed. It is. Particularly difficult scene to watch, especially if you'd someone whom you have seen suffer through the painful death because of AIDS. But somehow the film fails to deep dive into the emotional wreck that everyone is. Extramarital affairs; lingering regrets; interpersonal tension: all feature but none of them show us the real feelings of what these individuals are going through. We just see their actions but never the psyche behind it; which actually IMO would hav been a lot more valuable for a film like this. The film is more about death and grief rather than itself being about homosexuality, but it is still core, because its the actions done by Charlie when even the overdose didn't help Gavin, hat defines the reactions for each of these individuals. I think, the idea of the film was decent; but somehow the director failed to do deep into it. We really don't get to know much about the mother's relationship with her son, or Gavin's ex-lover or even Simon. What kind of guilt was he going through that lead him to eventually sleep with Anna. These and many more questions still linger in my mind, even though, I do understand that Charlie and Anna are supposed to be center of the film. Overall an alright film. (5/10)
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