This one falls into that darker corner of gay cinema. There was real potential buried in here, but the execution feels so flat that at points it plays out more like a filmed stage play than an actual movie. It's a dark psychological drama built around a street hustler confessing to a brutal, confusing murder of his own lover. Black and white flashback sequences do a solid job laying out the details of what happened, but the real focus stays on the dialogue and the writing itself. Right at the start, a young hustler has already killed his male lover Claude. Three days go by before he calls the police to turn himself in for the murder. But instead of just reporting it somewhere ordinary, he actually summons the police and the local press directly into a judge's private chambers. Yves has keys to the place, which tracks given what he does for a living, but having the press waiting right outside makes the whole scene look like some elaborate blackmail scheme against the judge. The ...
Not knowing hat to expect from the movie, it came as a pleasant surprise. The movie is light, not very heavy on the emotional scenes and keeps your interest throughout the pace of the film. It is rare to see gay cinema that is thoughtful, witty, romantic and sexy all at once. The film is shown in the form of narration by 'X'. He is a hustler by profession and has sex only for money. He does not believe in romance or random gay sex. He has 2 room mates Andrew and Joey. Andrew is a black gay male who also does not do hook ups because he believes in romance and this is the only person for whom X has hots for. Although there is a pattern emerging that slowly Andrew is getting into the whole hookup business. Then there is teenager Joey, who totally is in love with X but knows it cant get anywhere. Once X meets a client Gregory who ends up becoming his chat client. He still gets paid and Gregory shares with him his life story of love with a man for last 50 years. During the same time, Andrew is trying to get X to try and date but somehow X can have sex either for money or for love. Andrew wants to give it a try but only when X is ready to. Its clear that both X and Andrew have deeper feelings for each other but neither want to admit. When they both find out what Gregory had been telling X was a farce but it was al because they could realize that it is actually not that difficult to express and accept your love for someone. X and Andrew both realize this soon and are happy together.
The writing of the film is superb, the direction is crisp and the acting is good. People seem real with real feelings but of course there has to be some melodrama in everything. X emotes a type of vulnerability without giving up his pseudo-macho hustler persona. Andrew is still in his Noah's Arc mode and Joey was also very funny. Btw: X is sexy. There i something raw about his performance which at least I appreciated.
I think everyone will enjoy this film. I sure did. (7/10)
Comments
The movie might easily have gone wrong, if joey had slept with X, if X had blamed Grégory for his lies, or if X had expressed too much regret at the end. All of this was carefully left aside and that's what makes this film so great.
As a viewer, I am really happy I watched it. It leaves me with a smile on my face.