Thursday, January 22, 2015
Square pegs
Today's film earnestly examines gay love between a born-again christian boy and a non-believer.
To his credit, David Lewis, the writer and director doesn't slant the case very much.
The outcome is not happy nor is it the end of the world. Perhaps a pause.
Teen romance, the first love, is very vulnerable and can't withstand the push and pull of larger forces.
The film is a little didactic. One mother is liberal and supports the boys, the other is an uptight bitch who in one scene lets her hair down, she is beautiful. Then it goes up again.
Of course, I wanted the boys to fall in love and to stay together for ever. Such was not to be the case here and, perhaps, a lot more realistically.
For the christian boy, the jury is still out but it is pretty clear that while he has to go with the flow for awhile, or thinks he does, he is touched for life and will return to his true self. We are optimists. Otherwise he will turn into one of those terrible repressed homophobes full of self hate for a teen indiscretion.
We are left to draw out own conclusions but since he is the narrator, I vote for his coming out, taking care of the mom some way and moving on with his happy gay life.
The film is good but slow and takes awhile to get "there". There is a lot of scenic fill from the picturesque rocky shore.
A 3 out of Netflix5.
