Honestly I can't believe we're still getting BL series this bad in 2026. This mini series runs about 7 to 8 episodes with a total runtime of just about an hour and it is so boring that I genuinely struggle to find the words. The actors are awkward, the story is as basic as it gets and there is almost nothing about this show worth saving. The makers do try to stir up some drama here and there but even that falls completely flat. Ho Won is a 23 year old university student who spots a man sitting alone at a gay bar and gets attracted to him. The man is Min U, a 33 year old who brushes Ho Won off immediately saying he's too young. Ho Won lies about his age and since he's made a bet with the bartender that he'll get this man home before the night is over, he switches tactics and eventually the two end up at Min U's place and sleep together. Despite being complete opposites in every way there's some kind of pull between them and they go on a couple of dates. But t...
In this aptly titled film 'Sex', the story unfolds against the backdrop of modern urban Norway. Through clever wordplay, the film challenges conventional notions of masculinity and societal norms, regardless of whether the characters identify as heterosexual or homosexual. To be honest, this film would have been better suited as a theatre play. Th film is extremely heavy on dialogues and conversation and after a while, I was wondering if "can we just move on please!". More on that later.
Two chimney sweeps, both in monogamous, heterosexual marriages, find themselves in situations that challenge their perspectives on sexuality and gender norms. One of them has been having a series of dreams in which he is in a passionate relationship with David Bowie who makes him feel like a woman, while the other recently had a sexual encounter with a male client, an unexpected but surprisingly wonderful experience, which gets tarnished as soon as he tells his wife about it. Neither considers himself to be homosexual, but they find themselves slowly questioning their identity as time goes on. The film then continues to focus on how the second guys wife reacts to his husband cheating. He copes with his wife’s intense emotional reaction to an event that he sees as an unexpected blip and they are both chocked by what happened. The story if the first guy is a bit all over the place and doesn't get a proper conclusion. He seems to fall back on cliches that the film can’t entirely explore because he himself doesn’t know how to recognize the heteronormative standards he’s judging himself by.
The two protagonists question their sexual identity and come to terms with their own deviances and the impact these have on their lives going forward. The film is also about how the men’s perspectives on themselves shift because of these events and how their family reacts to them. When the guy tells his friend about the event with another man, he just thinks as a one off thing, no biggie. As soon as his wife responds to the news, he becomes crestfallen because his actions hurt her, and she can’t get past it. And the two get into many conversations on what this really means for both of them, which I thought was interesting but after a while gets to much. It goes into the realm of "There can be sex without intimacy, intimacy without commitment, and not-at-all intimate sex". The other friend's story was a little arbitrary to me and I just couldn't connect with it. The Bowie dream becomes a recurring part of his sleep, but rather than waking up feeling uneasy, he begins to take pleasure in the sensation of being looked at as a woman. I read that the film has a deeper meaning especially with the parallels of sprawling city landscapes, but none of that mattered to me. I wanted to feel, how as a film it makes me feel, and I think it was just average. (4/10)

Comments