This one's a beautiful, tender, quiet romantic drama with a moody atmosphere, set in a tight knit Welsh fishing community. It's a touching story about a man waking up sexually in the middle of his life, and how he, his family, and everyone around him deal with it, which makes it emotional and sentimental without ever getting over the top. The slow burn plays out against a landscape that's as bleak as it is gorgeous, where quiet, closed off men are stuck inside rigid ideas of what masculinity should be. Some people might be reminded of "God's Own Country," but I think both films are lovely in their own way. Jack is a middle aged guy who co-owns a mussel farm with his rough around the edges brother Dyfan, and the tension between the two of them is simmering under the surface right from the start. Dyfan's three sons all help out with the work, while Jack's sulky teenage son Tom keeps skipping out. Jack's been with his wife since they were both 16, and...
Wow!! I guess I have been so busy that I haven't had time to watch too many films but here I am back and plan to watch a lot more films in the coming days. I just came back from the opening night of Philly LGBT film festival and saw this film. It is very hard to say at this moment whether this film was the right film to open the festival or not because unless I watch some of the other films, it will be very hard to compare. But still it was a decent effort. The story line is definitely very novel and I must admit, I could not have thought of it but not every story turns out well on screen. This film also defied some general logic but more on that later.
Zack is a 30 something failed film-maker. He was a wonder film maker in his college days but hollywood glamour and partying brought him from fame to dust and now he makes wedding videos. On his best friend's insistence, he returns to his college to judge a film festival for short films made by students to choose the winner for the scholarship. The first night he meets a guy in a bar and ends up sleeping with him. He is shocked when he sees the same guy turn up for his interview on the short film 'Judas Kiss' that he has made. The guy is Danny and his background is absolutely same as Zack. WIth turn in events, it turns out that Danny is no one but his own younger self. Zack is facing his past. And it was Zack originally named Danny who made the film 'Judas Kiss' and won the best film-maker award. With the help of his old college teacher, he finds out that somehow he has been given a chance to maybe change his past, rectify some of the mistakes and in the process change his future. Danny is very confident of winning the scholarship because his film is talk of the campus. Danny catches fancy of Shane who just likes to use the budding film makers. Then there is Chris who has a huge crush on Danny since they met but Danny wants to be with Shane because he is the one who can solve his immediate monetary needs. Zack explains his younger self hard to see the reality otherwise he will end of being an utter failure like him both in professional and in personal life. Zack reveals the truth that Danny will be disqualified from the competition since he broke the rules thereby changing what happened in the past and also helps him realize why Chris is the right person for him and not Shane. Cut to today, things are all good and Shane's future now seems to be treading on the right path.
The theme of time travel has not really been tackled before in gay cinema so that way it was refreshing to watch something new but many a incidents just defy logic. 2 entities of the same body cannot be in the same time zone but I am sue director was not looking for a scientific justification. It was an idea which he turned into a film. The first half of the film was kinda suspenseful where the viewer is tying to figure out what is the actual relationship between Zack and Danny and when the truth is revealed, it is a little (just a little) hard to digest but dont we all love escapist cinema? Zack was very good in his role. You could feel the struggle and questions that were going inside him for everything that was happening around him. Surprisingly, I did not like the actor playing role of Danny initially. He seemed cocky (but in retrospect, that is what he was supposed to be) but he grew on me over a period of time. Amongst the supporting cast Chris was a feast on the eyes. His innocent looks fit the character. Shane was OTT according to me. The production values were pretty good for a gay film and it did not look like a rushed job. Since it is pretty much filmed in a campus, there are not many scenic locations. By the way, I loved the flowy hair of Zack in the film. lol
Interesting plot (though not translated to the best potential), convincing acting and the fact that this is the first of the many films I am going to watch in next few days made this a decent watch for me. Let the film festival begin. This one was just ok. (6/10)
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