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 ...
The story is primarily about three teenage boys. Peter, is an artist, whose mother knows he is gay but his father refuses to accept this and wants him to become a man. Miles regularly bullies Peter caling him faggot, but he is himself closeted gay. At home he has a very hostile relationship with his mother who resorts to prostitution for drugs. It turns out Miles has been using Jack for his sexual pleasure, who suffers physical and verbal abuse at the hands of his alcoholic single dad. When Peter goes for a hunting weekend with his father, they end up in a cabin where nearby Jack lives and somehow Miles and his girlfriend are also either passing by or live there or something of that sorts. Somehow Jack and Peter both run away form their dad, meet and spend next couple of days exploring each other and also maybe falling for each other. Not before Miles finds them and in a silly scene forces them to join a party otherwise he will out them. It didn't make any sense. Jack can't eventually take the abuse anyone and kills himself. Peter is heartbroken and so is Miles, who apparently really loved Jack.
The film is so odd right from the beginning. Its as if all kids are gay and all adults are messed up individuals and a community is unable to accept LGBT folks. The film tries to pack so much into a single film, that it never bothers to go into the details of either the psyche of these three individuals or their relationship with each other and their parents. The film touches upon suicide, drug addiction, sexuality and bullying, but it never really finds a strong way to explore them. Instead, each of the topics is touched upon and added to the story in a very surface level way. Besides the good looking leads, the film has noting going for it. Badly written screenplay nd equally bad direction, surely this film is nowhere bad to those horror vampire wanna be queer dramas, but then in 2021, there is no excuse for giving audience, nonsense like this which serves absolutely no entertainment or message or purpose. (3/10)
Comments