Tuesday, July 24, 2012
GRANID FINALE
Today's Favorite Gay Film #1 was Ang Lee's
Also a NYTimes Critics' Pick.
I have never seen this film. Perhaps the only gay man in the USA that has not.
I read the original story in the New Yorker (much smaller scale) and I did like it a lot. When the film came out I realized they had gilded the lily. Well they would have to. And I didn't want the gild.
As it stands it is a good enough story with some heartache and some filler. It is not the picture one would want to see as a positive image of gay life. Well, it is Wyoming and all.
But that is not the purpose of film.
It is a sad love story. Twenty years of a starved relationship is all sad. Twice a year. Sometimes less.
The direction is great. Ang Lee. The scenery. The side stories. The acting.
Gyllenhaal Ledger do well in capturing homoerotic longing. But it is acting. It is rather hard to forget the it is Gyllenhaal. A little less so with Ledger who acts harder and sometimes better but you can see the effort.
I know. I am nit picking. But everyone connected with this project is straight and that is the sensibility. Of course you can say that the characters are gay men trapped in straight bodies. Or straight acting personas. You could say a lot about all of this but it is still a pretty good movie. I would not want to see it again although if you had it and were showing it, I would watch parts of it again with my hand on the FF.
That makes it a 4 out of Netflix5.
