Rialto

After two unsuccessful attempts of trying to watch this film, since I couldn't understand a word what the actors were speaking, I finally found the version with subtitles. This film is the story of a man in his late 40s, around a crisis moment that drives him to act on the very desires he has perhaps been apologizing for all along.

The film starts with Colm meeting a young hustler Jay in a bathroom in a mall. Having no clue how any of this works, the young lad ends up taking money from Colm who runs away like a crazy man. Back home he has a wife and a grown up son and a daughter. His father passed away recently and we are told he shared some sort of strained relationship with him. Jay, unexpectedly shows up at Colm's work the next day blackmailing him for money which he eventually gives him to watch him jerk off. Dealing with his father's death, his not so good relationship with his own son and eventually losing his job that he has been for 30 years makes Colm look for solace in Jay. Hence begins an affair. It is in Jay’s mercurial, money-motivated affections that Colm seeks solace. Turns out 19 year old Jay has a girlfriend and a daughter himself. HIs supporting wife wants to help but eventually gives up and leaves house. Colm comes clean to his son, since he thinks that his son may as well hate him for some reason than generic. The ending is a bit open ended and we don't know where any of Colm's relationships (including Jay) eventually ends up going.

Rialto is an old working-class area of Dublin in which Colm’s mother lives. This gives a very realistic portrayal of what local life there is like. With closeups of Colm, we get little sense of the city, the society, the world around him, and how he interacts with it, especially given the only glancing characterization of the supporting roles. And with an ending that is carefully calibrated to remain ambivalent and unresolved, “Rialto” builds an intimate portrait of masculine crisis, illuminated by two extraordinary central performances, but stops just short of converting all that insight into truly powerful cinema. Besides Colm, and his affair with Jay, rest all play more if a supporting structure in this film. Because the roles of both Colm, as a paying client, and Jay, as the sex worker, are so clearly defined, a safe space opens up between them where they don't have to lie about either who they are or what they want. While Colm is pursuing a destructive relationship with a young hustler, Jay is hiding his protective affection for his own new-born daughter under a tough exterior. The film refuses to judge Colm for his actions but sadly that means that his wife and family become a collateral damage to his painful process of self-revelation, which is not even given a proper ending. Why tell the truth to his own son, what does it eventually mean, etc.? Colm eventually goes for what he wants outside of a conventional life.

It's a slow decent film. Story of a man going through a midlife crisis and looking for same sex respite is not new but the treatment is different, although the film does leave you with a lot of open questions. (6/10)