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 ...
This indie flick is basically the story of a gay teenage romance that’s found and then lost, all wrapped up in a Halloween party setting. Honestly, that’s the best way to put it. It’s got a super thin plot—maybe just a one-liner about a guy trying to find some closure—so it feels way more like a character study than an actual, full-blown love story.
The movie jumps back and forth between these really intimate flashbacks and the present day, where a lot of scheming is going on. It follows the relationship of Anatole, who’s semi-closeted, and Liam, who’s a total bleeding heart. They’ve been broken up for a bit, but Liam is still hurting like it just happened yesterday. He’s dead set on getting a second chance, so he sneaks into this exclusive Halloween party because he knows for a fact Anatole is going to be there. Once he’s inside, this girl catches him and threatens to blow his cover unless he agrees to babysit her creepy little "ghostly" brother while she runs off to hook up with her boyfriend. Liam is stuck and has no choice but to go along with it. As all the typical Halloween party craziness happens around them, we get flashes of the last eight months of their relationship. Every time we see Liam try to get close or get physical, Anatole just retreats into a shell. Eventually, the two of them track each other down and have a real talk. Liam understands why Anatole acts the way he does, and for his final words, he just tells him he hopes Anatole finds the courage to love someone one day because he has so much to give. There’s another flashback that actually explains why Anatole has these mental scars when it comes to being physical with people. While all this is going down, Liam and the kid he’s watching over end up becoming mentors for one another, helping each other grow through their own personal journeys.
To be honest, the first half of the movie is kind of a snooze fest. You’re just looking around the room at different characters and their perspectives, and it doesn't do much. But during that time, the bond Liam forms with the ghost kid is actually what kept me interested. The flashback scenes of the relationship don't really give us a ton of info, other than the fact that they met on a bus, Anatole is somewhat in the closet and scared of physical intimacy, and they eventually decided to just call it quits. There’s a really big moment near the end involving a keyhole tattoo that stands out as one of those defining images—it’s a powerful statement on consent and child abuse. The movie basically argues both for and against the pain of young heartbreak. The actors do a fine job with what they have, but the movie just doesn't quite grab you and hold your attention. It probably would’ve made a really strong short film, but as it stands, it’s just an average movie.
It's a small-scale character study that handles some heavy themes like consent and trauma, but the slow pace keeps it from being truly engaging. It feels like a great short film idea that got stretched a little too thin. (4.5/10)
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