Friday, October 09, 2015
Close to real life
Today's film is about the conflict between religious dogma and personal experience.
Not always a tight fit.
Especially when one discovers that he is gay and the rest of his immediate world is so not.
A rocky coast and nothing much to do, two boys find that they both like to play around and make love with one another.
Idyllic.
Until they realize that not everyone thinks so.
One mother is accepting, the other a religious bigot bitch who puts her son second to her supposed beliefs.
If this sounds as though I am bitter, it could be because this is my story.
One always loves his or her mother but some mothers are more fiercely dislikable than others. It makes it an uphill job.
But I didn't have the support of a boyfriend and his supportive family.
I am sorry to make this so personal but it gets pretty close to the way I was treated. And many other men and women who got marked as queer by the church, that bastion of love and acceptance.
Right bastards, a lot of them.
I, surprisingly, had my father. Who told me that they were indeed a "bunch of bastards" for a number of reasons and he stuck with me even as it took me many years to come out to him.
But that was me. Most gay men still feel their coming out stories to their toes and most of the gay films that are out reflect this. Here is another one. Not bad. Not great. The romantic interest is very high and the sex kind of chaste in a country church boy kind of way.
The incidentals are also nicely done. The straight girl confidant, the preacher who gets it but can't say so. It is OK that this is the case. No new ground broken but it is a timeless story.
It would rate a 3 out of Netflix5.
