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 ...
Brent, an aging gay man is the main protagonist of the story. He is a huge fan of his mother, whose used to be a famous artist and is now on death bed with cancer. He has lived in the shadow of his famous mother all his life, and is constantly trying to survive and find out who he really is by stealing and doing odd jobs here and there. Along the way, we meet his group of eccentric and quirky friends, who might be a bit more colorful than most people. A woman friend who runs a bar, an older gay man whose house is always filled with drag queens dressing up for performances and most importantly a straight couple, close friends of Brent, and Brent who secretly has a crush on the husband. All these characters may not significantly add much to the story itself , but it's a more slice of life kinda film. When Brent's mother passes away and he almost gets a reality check by various people on his looks and what he really means for most folks, at the end he leaves the city with all his mother's stuff.
The film was supposedly a queer comedy and I can see how the film sensibilities were different in that era. Likely influenced by the famous queer French film La Cage Aux Folles (which was filmed the very same year); this film wasn't my flavour. The films need to say something or mean something and here that wasn't very clear. Sure queer solidarity, rebellion against pettiness, celebration of life could be a few examples, but all these things in isolation do not make a memorable movie watching experience. Thankfully the lead actor was quite charming and portrayed the role of Brent very beautifully and you could see the mischief and sadness and perkiness with his mother; different emotions at different times. But overall, there is not much to keep you going. Even the group of drag friends, just dressing up and the forced comedy of neighborhood man beating his wife or the new straight tenant, just did not work for me at all. (2.5/10)
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