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...
Mike, is our main protagonist, a gawky and nerdy teenager in high school. He lives with his mother at home and works at a video store. He is constantly late to school and is bullied by school guys and is called faggot occasionally. A new hot and good looking student Will joins his class and a class project brings the two guys together to present their own interpretation of ‘Romeo & Juliet’. The duo decide to give a spin to the story with Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolfman as two societal misfits who want to be lovers. The two boys slowly get very close and we also get an insight into their lives. Both come from broken homes. Will’s father is drunk and abusive and his mother is in a nursing home, barely conscious and doesn’t even recognize her own son. Given such situations, When Mike approaches Will with his love, he first pulls away but slowly comes back. The two are now together slowly struggling with acceptance amongst themselves. The duo doesn’t get enough love at home and these are the moments that they have each other. The family situation doesn’t improve any more and just like the project they were working on, their love story also has a tragic ending. Will ultimately takes his own life leaving Mike to accept the reality and never forget his first love.
This film has received excellent reviews and have taken people back to those innocent times when cellphones were not there and people used to watch videos (probably early 90s); but I still feel there was something that was missing with the film. I can’t pin point to what it was but I was just unable to connect with the characters. I think they acted really well, especially Will, as the confused kid with abusive father. But I felt their chemistry lacked passion and felt more like friends. Mike was quite awkward , portraying exactly what his character demanded. Thankfully there are no unnecessary explicit sex scenes just to titilate us. The story was quite interesting and the direction was good too. A little bit focus on editing and background music would have helped this film quite a bit. I did not understand any reasoning behind all the video store scenes which were a couple of them.
Either I was not in the right frame of mind or my expectations from a film are very different from a general movie-going audience but I was a bit disappointed with the overall result. (5/10)
Comments
I found the dialogs terrible to be honest, and I couldn't connect with the characters at all.
And that end... typical bad ending I hate so much. I mean: you end the night in your lover's arms so OF COURSE the next thing on your mind is to hung yourself when he is asleep so that your dead body is the first thing he finds out when he wakes up... I can't understand that kind of script.