THEGAYUK

Tag: Four Star Film Review

The latest four-star film review from THEGAYUK.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Riot Club; Violent Morally Abhorrent, Immensley Watchable

    ★★★★ The Riot Club | The atrocious unsocial behaviour of a group of very wealthy privileged college-age offspring of England’s landed gentry whose utter contempt for the poor is matched by their assumed rights of trashing and vandalising other people’s properties, seems a odd topic for a movie.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Snails In The Rain, Four Stars

    Snails In The Rain | ★★★★

    Every day on his way to University, linguistics student Boaz stops at the Post Office to check his mailbox to see if there is a letter telling him he has been awarded a Scholarship to continue his studies in Jerusalem. One day however, inside the box he finds a letter he has not been expecting, is a note from a secret male admirer who says that watching Boaz from afar is the highlight of his day.

    The place is Tel Aviv and the year is 1989 when homosexuality was secretive and closeted and encounters only happened in the dark shadows of night. It was also the time before computers and emails when the mail was still the main way to communicate. Boaz has been happily living with Noa his adoring girlfriend for over a year now, and his life is seemingly as perfect as it can get. Now when these unsolicited letters start arriving he gets thrown off kilter and they suddenly reignite memories he had chosen to forget when he almost hadam intimate encounter with another man during his Military service.By the time the third letter has arrived, Boaz’s curiosity to the author’s identity has turned into paranoia, as he believes that every man he encounters in the street, on the bus, in the library is staring at him in a lustful manner. The fact that Boaz is played by Yoav Reuveni a rather stunning ex-international male model turned actor would make this a totally feasible assumption. It is however Noa, who suspicious of Boaz’s sudden change in attitude at home, who finds the letters and correctly puts two and two together to work out who the real writer is.

    Boaz is now desperately struggling with his sexual identity so much so that when the 4th letter arrives and demands that he agrees to a pre-arranged way of signaling if he is in fact interested in returning his admirers affection, that he gets in such a state that he is about to explode. Or do something to vent out his anger and confusion that he may somehow regret.

    This rather intriguing drama about repressed homosexual feelings and desire acutely brings back an era when lust was often hidden and unrequited. The movie was based on a short story by Yossi Avni Levy who is (most intriguingly) currently the Israeli Ambassador in Serbia. It was directed and written by Yariv Moser (who co-starred in it too) best known for his two excellent documents ‘My First War’ and ‘The Invisible Men’. Moser’s decision to cast first-time actors paid off well as Mr. Reuveni in particular turned in a pitch perfect turn as the perturbed Boaz.

    And knowing how to keep his audience completely glued to the screen Moser heightens the air of homoeroticism with having Boaz constantly take showers at the drop of a hat too.

    Highly recommended.

  • FILM REVIEW | Bumblef**k USA

    ★★★★ | Bumblef**k USA

    Newbie filmmaker Aaron Douglas Johnson’s debut feature is an unsettling docu-drama hybrid that arose from a very personal tragedy in his life.

    Johnson was born in a small town in Iowa and as an only child he grew up very close to his cousin Matt. By all accounts, Matthew, a devout Catholic and a passionate Republican, was a very popular member of his high school soccer team. Matthew was also gay, and at the age of 24 committed suicide after coming out of the closet in his hometown. This film, however, is not a biopic but Johnson’s attempt to try and get a better understanding of what it must have been like for Matthew to struggle with his sexuality in this small town in Middle America.

    The film successfully mixes a fictional story about Alexa a young blond Dutch woman who had befriended Matt on a Course somewhere and she has flown to Iowa from Amsterdam to make a documentary about her friends passing. Amongst all the interviews she films (unscripted and with very actual local lesbians and gays) she goes on somewhat of her own roller-coaster ride as she also starts to discover her own true identity as well.

    Settling into a house where she has rented a room for the summer, Alexa is so caught up in her own world that she is unaware that Lukas her landlord, a lonely man in his 40s, is immediately attracted to her. In fact, we soon discover that she has an unfortunate manner taking all kindnesses for granted and happily using and promptly discarding everybody who takes any interest in her.

    After her first night in Iowa, this somewhat confused girl wakes up in a strange bed without much recollection on how she ended up there. Her bed partner is Jennifer a local bartender/artist and the two women could not be more opposite. Not just because this is Alexa’s first time with a woman, but the fact out and proud lesbian Jennifer is an edgy positive woman who knows exactly what she wants out of life. And that doesn’t include sleeping with ‘straight’ women who end up running back to their boyfriends, as she has done that already.

    Alexa’s voyage of discovery will start at that moment when she cannot wait to get dressed and get out of Jennifer’s apartment. She’ll be back on and off, but not before she has a romp in a cemetery (well with a male grave digger) who, when he has finished making out with her in her room, is then unceremoniously kicked out by the Landlord at her request. Lukas will eventually try his luck after he has seen Alex dispensing sexual favours liberally with others, and when she resists, he rapes her.

    Johnson’s intriguing and thought-provoking film is somewhat disturbing. Not simply as the talking heads so poignantly articulate their own strife dealing, and overcoming, with some of the negative consequences after acknowledging the truth about their sexuality, but using a thoughtless and self-absorbed protagonist in the fictional story made it nigh on impossible to sympathise with her at times. It was, however, a very clever and unusual formula for reinforcing his key message i.e. it’s still tough being out and gay in so many places even today.

    Johnson should be applauded for honouring his cousin’s memory in this manner, and if this movie succeeds in just saving one more life, then it was all definitely worthwhile.

  • FILM REVIEW | Palo Alto

    ★★★★ | Palo Alto

    The directorial debut of Gia Coppola, Palo Alto is an exploration of high school teenagers experimentations with sex, drugs, and alcohol, and it’s an impressive debut.

    Coppola, the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola and niece of Sofia Coppola and Nicholas Cage, turns James Franco’s book of the same name into a gritty yet honest movie of a bunch of teenagers in a Palo Alto, California High School. Franco’s book was a series of stories, and Coppola’s film links them up beautifully to create a film that flows, with characters who we could all relate to.

    April (an amazing Emma Roberts) is the class virgin. April’s popular amongst her peers and is a star soccer player. She is also being chased by her creepy soccer coach Mr B., whom she babysits for (Franco, in one of his best roles in years). But Mr B. just doesn’t like April, he also ‘likes’ other girls at the school – he’s a paedophile.

    Meanwhile, Teddy (Jack Kilmer), and Fred (Nat Wolff) are the best of friends, yet it’s Fred unpredictable behaviour that at times becomes explosive and dangerous. And Teddy has a huge crush on April, and he is unaware of her relationship with Mr B.

    Zoe Levin plays Emily. She’s basically the school slut and sleeps with Fred. Teddy, taking a page from Fred’s book, is caught drunk driving and has to perform community service, in a library where Fred visits and proceeds to deface a book. Throw in a mix of more parties and more romances and what you have is a teenage high school film that is made for grownups.

    Coppola gives us a film that is seen through the eyes of the teenagers; their angst, their anxiety, semi-innocence, boredom and excitement. It’s a movie that feels real, with performances to match. Roberts, the niece of Julia, was the perfect choice for the role of April. She’s 23 years old but in the film looks like she’s 16. Kilmer (son of actor Val Kilmer, who has a cameo in the film as a stoned-out stepfather), is also very good as Teddy, tight friends with Fred yet trying to win April’s affections. And Franco is perfect as the lecherous soccer coach – his guilty smile and glint in his eyes say it all – he’s very handsome yet very dangerous. Franco trusted his book to Coppola to turn it into a movie, and she does a fantastic job. Not bad for a first-timer. Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola should watch their back, another Coppola family member is on the way up.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Last Impresario

    ★★★★ | The Last Impresario

    Gracie Otto’s affectionate documentary on the charismatic and adventurous English theatre and film producer Michael White is a movie long overdue. Despite his enormous contribution in a prolific career that spanned three decades he is as Anna Wintour succinctly put it, ‘the most famous person that you’ve never heard’. Ms Wintour also so accurately summed up his rich and tumultuous career by describing him as ‘a true Renaissance man’.

    Michael ‘Chalky’ White was born in Glasgow in 1936 to wealthy immigrant Jewish parents who packed him off to Boarding School in Switzerland at the tender age of 7. This small shy boy who suffered from asthma and couldn’t speak a word of French was something of a loner and although fiercely independent developed a skill in befriending everyone, a character trait that would end up changing his life.

    From Switzerland, he went to study at the Sorbonne which was followed by a stint as a Wall Street runner in the 1950s. Somewhere along the line this well-travelled young man discovered a passion for the theatre and landed himself a job with the impresario Peter Daubney in London producing international theatre seasons. At the ripe age of 25 White produced his first play in the West End. It was not a conventional drama but a production of Jack Gelber’s Living Theatre group called ‘The Connection’ and it depicted the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. It had a mixed reception with its detractors up in arms about the debauchery on stage which showed men shooting up, something totally unheard of back in 1959 when every play was still censored by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.

    It was however not the last time that White would break all the rules as he pursued anything avant-garde and different than the norm in a career in which he mounted 101 stage productions and produced 27 films.

    He introduced London to art ‘happenings’ with Yoko Ono, contemporary dance with Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, discovered the ground-breaking ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, joined forces with Kenneth Tynan to produce the all-nude review Oh Calcutta’, gave Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna Everage his first big break. Then as his career moved into movies he produced ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, John Water’s ‘Polyester’, and the classic ‘My Dinner with Andre’.

    Otto starts her movie almost at the end when after casually meeting White at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 she is intrigued about this charming septuagenarian who literally knows everybody worth knowing. And what’s more, they all totally adore him. From British royalty to the Hollywood A list via mega-rock stars to model superstars, White has hung out with them all, and many of them, including ex-wives and girlfriends, eagerly line up to give witness to all the joyous times they have spent together. Even Wintour the Ice Queen cracks a rare smile on her face when she talks about her times with White.

    White’s professional success (and sometimes failure) is because he is a gambler. Unlike any of his peers, he is happy to take a chance on people and their productions simply if he believes in them, almost in the same way that he bets on horses too. His personal ‘success’ is because he is an optimist and believes that everyone is his friend. ‘Some people have cheated me, but I have no enemies at all.’

    Now after a couple of strokes, although White refuses to acknowledge the ageing process, he is obviously not in a good shape physically or financially. Whilst he is happy to talk about his life (with the rare exception such as losing the lucrative rights to The Rocky Horror Show) he adamantly refuses to let Otto in to find out much about him as a man. Several colleagues drop very broad hints that part of his present demise is due to not just the excessive partying but the use of recreational drugs, but Otto chooses not to pursue any of this.

    His legacy will not just be all the thousands of photographs he took to chronicle his life with a whole galaxy or stars, or the correspondence with the rich and famous that he had hoarded for decades. It will be the way that his approach of leading with his heart and not his head completely propelled London into being a true world-class stage and discovering and giving a voice to such a remarkable array of talent. It also helped that he was also a professional charmer.

    The world is definitely a better place because of Michael White, the like of whom we will never see again.

  • FILM REVIEW | Tru Love

    ★★★★ | Tru Love

    When 60-year-old Alice comes to Toronto six months after becoming a widow, her daughter Suzanne a lawyer is too busy at work to be home to greet her mother.

    She asks her unemployed friend Tru to step in at the last minute to look after Alice but then is shocked when she later arrives home and find that the two women have very quickly bonded. When Suzanne goes back to the office again that night, Alice takes Tru out to dinner to thank her, and the conversation soon takes a very personal turn.

    Alice is fascinated to learn about 30-something-year-old Tru’s life as a commitment-phobic serial-bed-hopping lesbian’s seemingly carefree life. She admits to having similar feelings when she was young but confessed that back in those days one had either to get married or join a nunnery. This provokes Tru into joking that the latter would have been the same as being a lesbian. There is obviously an attraction between the two women, but both are afraid to act upon it.

    The relationship between Alice and Suzanne is, however, is tenuous, to say the least as if neither can deal with the other’s grief for the departed husband/father. When it is clear that Alice’s spirits are so lifted by just spending time with Tru, Suzanne steps in and meddles to try and ensure that she puts a stop to their budding relationship. It appears at first she is in denial that Alice could possibly be a lesbian, but it soon turns out that this lonely partnerless woman has another reason to resent Tru making her mother so happy.

    Tru on the other hand slowly realises that with this welcoming older woman she is capable of loving someone after all. Alice never doubts her feelings but in some wonderful scenes talking to her late husband (seen on screen) she does question if this invalidates her life to date as she has not been true to her own feelings.

    This very touching story is very much about the two women’s quite chaste love but also equally about Alice’s relationship with her own daughter which seems to have reached a very low point. It’s unexpected and sudden ending was not the best way to finish the story as it didn’t really seem to give closure to all of them, well, at least to the two younger women.

    It’s an entertaining spirited movie about a delightful May/December relationship. Shauna MacDonald who co-wrote and co-directed as well as playing Tru gave herself a part that could/should have done more, but she did at least enable Kate Trotter who superbly played Alice and was a sheer joy as so convincingly conveyed the spirit of a woman finally discovering herself.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Overnighters

    ★★★★ | The Overnighters

    After North Dakota introduced the controversial technology known as fracking in 2008 it suddenly became the nation’s second largest oil producing State.

    So as the economic recession started to kick in really hard over the next few years, thousands of unemployed men unable to find work in their part of the country flocked to the new oilfields hoping to secure jobs. Many ended up the city of Willaston which is located in the oil-rich region in the west of the state. Totally unprepared for job searching which could take some considerable time or at which they could fail as they were totally unqualified, many of these migrant workers ended up being homeless and destitute.

    Their one chance of surviving and making their dreams succeed lay in the hands of an extraordinary local Lutheran Pastor who mounted what turned out to be a one man band to help these men try and succeed and move on. Pastor Reinke knew that the City permitted people to sleep overnight in their own cars if they were parked legally, but for the people that had come by bus and train, he went one step further and opened up the church premises and allowed them to sleep on any floor space they could claim.

    This program called ‘the overnighters’ was started in the dead of winter and the church’s congregation went along with their leader’s plan assuming that when the spring came, the men would move out and on. But each day more and more men arrived seeking refuge and the trickle turned into a flood. The Pastor suggested that the men make a voluntary contribution towards their keep, but insisted on them submitting to a background check and also attending church.

    As this influx of cars and men impacted the neighbourhood and at the same, the crime rate also rose the local paper started to voice the concerns of the community and published a few damning pieces on the Pastor’s activities. In a badly thought out move he panicked and invited one of the men who had been a convicted sex offender to stay with his own family to take the heat off for a while… but when word got out, it was the start of the unravelling of the whole program and the Pastor’s own life.

    Director Jesse Moss was his own one-man crew when he filmed this in 2012/3 and he gets up close and personal in telling the intimate stories of some of the men that are passing through in the hope of a better life. And although their struggles simply to survive are a powerful indictment on the effects of the downturn of a global economy on ordinary working men, it is the Pastor’s own somewhat bewildering and incessant crusade that is the main focus here. Reinke is resolute in his sheer doggedness to offer these men shelter and hope despite the overwhelming objections of the City, and of his own congregation who are angry at being railroaded into giving their support to something they can no longer tolerate.

    The Pastor’s very blinkered approach to expecting all of his neighbours to act as he believes Christians too unfairly casts them as the devil’s advocate when the refuse to go along with all his plans, and he eventually pays the cost of pushing them all too hard. There is more than hint that he has his own troubled past and on one occasion when he sympathies with one of the men who is baring his tormented soul, he remarks that they have a lot more in common than the other man would think. There are also the tell-tale signs of sudden flares of anger when Reinke believes that anyone has betrayed his trust in him. And then when the chips are down at the end of the movie, Reinke shocks his placid wife (and us) with a surprising confession.

    Moss’s movie never steers shy from showing the sheer despair of these men, and even of their guardian angel too. This compelling feature length documentary is quite an eye opener, in every sense of the word.

    In UK Cinemas 31st October

  • FILM REVIEW | The Fault In Our Stars

    16 year old Hazel Graze is permanently attached to an oxygen tank that now keeps her alive after her most recent bouts of cancer. If knowing that her days on earth are severely limited isn’t bad enough, she has to cope with her well-meaning parents and their enforced sunny dispositions to just get through each day. It’s no wonder that this sweet teenager is so depressed as she is dragged from counsellor to group therapy because the adults in her life tell her this is what she needs.

    It isn’t of course, but as stoic and brave as she is, Hazel is not sure that anything beyond her favourite post-modern novel (about cancer), will ever remotely make her happy. That is until one day in the Youth Cancer Group she meets Augustus. A clever tall and handsome 18-year old whose potential career as a baseball player was cut short when cancer took his right leg. He’s a carefree optimistic soul with a very quick acerbic wit who takes an instant shine to Hazel and pursues with an energy and enthusiasm that totally throws her.

    He takes her out on a few very chaste dates, reads the novel that she is addicted too and starts courting her with long late night phone conversations and they gradually morph into a couple in love. A few weeks into this budding relationship Augustus springs a surprise. He’s fixed it with the ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ for the two of them to take a trip to Amsterdam where Hazel can meet Van Houten the author of the book she will not put down. The elusive writer never produced the sequel he promised and Hazel has always been desperate to know what happened next in this unfinished story.

    Meanwhile, before she can go she has another close call with death when she suddenly gets very sick again. It turns out that she will recover to fight another day only to realise that Augustus’s cancer has reappeared and this time there is going to be nothing to stop it being terminal, and soon.

    If that is not enough grief, Van Houten is a major disappointment and breaks her heart too, and just to ensure that we use up at least two boxes of Kleenex watching this high-octane tearjerker, when the young couple are in Amsterdam they visit the Anne Franck house, giving us another reason to sob out loud.

    However what makes this melodrama work and keep our sympathy remaining high throughout is a beautifully understated and mature performance by Shailene Woodley who so carefully avoids any temptation to milk the part and make Hazel a tragic figure. She imbues her with such a serenity and a dignity, makes her warm and funny and never once makes this poor dying teenager a pathetic figure. She is a sheer joy to watch. Ansel Elgot has a slightly easy task as Augustus and he does it exceedingly well demonstrating such great chemistry with his co-star.

    Based on the best-selling novel by John Green who used his past experiences as a chaplain in a children’s hospital for the groundwork of his story. Adapted for the screen by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, who previously wrote ‘The Spectacular Now’ together, and it is director Josh Boone’s sophomore feature.

    Highly recommended.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Two Faces Of January

    ★★★★ | The Two Faces Of January

    After an overly long gestation period, this lesser-known psychological thriller from novelist Patricia Highsmith finally makes it to the big screen.

    The year is 1962 and the story opens on the sunny steps of the Acropolis where two American tourists, Chester McFarland and his much younger bride Collette, are having fun enjoying the splendor of the Ruins, whilst nearby Rydal a handsome charismatic Tour Guide has a small group of young wealthy debutantes eating out of his hands. At Collette’s insistence, Chester hires the guide to take them sightseeing although he quickly realises that the young man is not all he claims to be.

    It turns out that neither is Chester, and the past that he is running from is far more complicated and filled with danger. That night a Private Investigator turns up at Chester’s hotel room and threatens to expose him unless he repays the money he swindled from some Clients in a Ponzi-type scheme. After a struggle in which he kills the man, Chester realises that he will need to quickly flee Athens before the murder is discovered. So he turns to Rydal sensing that the young man will know someone who can get them new passports to replace the ones that the Hotel had taken off them when they checked in.

    As they all need to hide out until the new passports can be forged, Rydal suggests that they take the night ferry to the distant island of Crete. However when they arrive there the Hotel will not give them rooms without proper identity, so they catch a decrepit local bus into the remote heart of the island hoping that a more basic village inn would take them in regardless. As the journey gets more difficult and fraught the trio seem less elegant and assured particularly as there are strong undercurrents of mistrust developing between them, especially the two men. Rydal seems fixated with Chester who he thinks off as a substitute figure for his father whom is estranged from, whilst on the other hand, Chester suspects that the young man wants to steal Colette away from him.

    Suspicion leads to treachery and the pace gets more frenetic as they try to keep one eye on each other whilst keeping the other eye looking out for the authorities in hot pursuit as they start catching up on them. It’s very clear that it’s not going to end well for any of them.

    It’s hardly a Hitchcock masterpiece like his adaptation of Highsmith’s Strangers on A Train, nor is it Minghella’s take on the novelist’s Talented Mr Ripley but Oscar-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini in his directing debut does an admirable job keeping the tension level high in this gripping thriller. The moody cinematography is particular is superb adding a very dramatic visual look to this period piece. Whilst the lead actors Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst may not have a great deal of chemistry as a couple, they put in really fine performances as the troubled McFarlands that one expects from these two talented actors The real joy, however, is Oscar Isaac who was completely mesmerizing as Rydal, and this following hotly on from his riveting turn in Inside Lllewyn Davies clearly shows that he is destined to be a major star.

  • FILM REVIEW | Wakolda

    ★★★★ | Wakolda

    In the opening scenes of this historical drama we see a distinguished looking German gentleman accosting a travelling family of five to ask if he may follow behind them as he is unsure about driving alone on the desolate dirt roads in the middle of the vast plains of Patagonia.

    The year is 1960 and they are heading south to the small lakefront town of Bariloche to re-open a Hotel that once was a thriving concern when another generation of the family ran it. The German never reveals much about his own destination or any of his plans for staying in this country far from home.

    When they finally arrive, the German, who the family are learning is either a Doctor or Scientist, insists on renting a room from them and to overcome their reluctance sweetens his request by overpaying as he has sensed that the family is cash poor. Eva the heavily pregnant mother is German speaking, as are so many of the local residents – as the best school in the area was the German one, and she welcomes him into their home. Her husband Enzo is a struggling doll-maker and although a man of few words and simple tastes, he is the only one in the family who is not impressed with the charm onslaught from this very creepy stranger in their midst.

    The ‘Doctor’ is particularly taken by Lilith the 12 year old of the family who has always been much smaller than the norm for her age ever since she was born 2 months premature. Soon he is trying to persuade the parents that with the hormone treatment that he has been working on, he can improve Lilith’s growth rate dramatically. They are all initially reluctant to even consider this course of action but Eva relents after Lilith suffers another brutal day of taunting at her school because of her size. However she insists that they keep the news of this change of heart from Enzo until at least Lilith starts gaining some height.

    Now the ‘Doctor’ has gained Eva’s confidence he turns his attention to her, especially when he discovers that she is going to give birth to twins as we eventually find out that he has some plans of his own for these yet unborn babies.

    This movie from Argentinian filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, adapted from her own novel, never hides the fact that the Doctor is none other than Josef Mengele the notorious Nazi who did barbarous and inhuman genetic experiments on the inmates of Auschwitz earning himself the moniker ‘The Angel of Death.’ This highly believable fiction is based on the fact that after the War he, like so other high-ranking Nazis, fled to South America where he continued his cruel work on pregnant women and children until his death in Brazil in 1979.

    Puenzo slowly unravels her story and builds the tension by insinuating what the Doctor really is up too as he slowly manipulates his way into this family’s lives. It is only the German School Archivist that suspects and confirms his true identity and she is anxious that he is caught and out in trial for his war crimes just like Eichmann who Israelis had recently captured. Unfortunately, as he is protected by a wide network of loyal Party supporters he will always manage to completely avoid this.

    This chilling tale succeeds mainly due to the combination of a convincingly sinister performance by Spanish actor Àlex Brendemühl as the menacing Mengele, and also the bleak remote landscape dramatically captured by cinematographer Nicolás Puenzo, who is also the Director’s brother. This was Argentine’s official submission for Best Foreign Picture Oscar, and although it didn’t end up with a nomination, it was definitely worth a consideration.

  • FILM: A Man, His Lover and His Mother

    Lorenz Meran is a successful middle-aged gay writer who is struggling with writer’s block when he gets called back home after his elderly mother has a stroke.

    Rosie is a feisty old bird and unlike Lorenz and his perpetually unhappy sibling Sophie, she seems to be the one member of this family who likes to have some fun. A little too much now given the fragile state of her health but whatever happens, she is determined not to give up chain smoking or even admit to the fact that she is an alcoholic.

    The parental home is a small town in eastern Switzerland, a far cry from Lorenz’s hedonistic life in Berlin of one-night stands that he chronicles in his novels, but as his mother’s health declines he very reluctantly finds himself back in the house he never thought he would ever have to live in again. He does, however, have a diversion one night when he has an ‘encounter’ with Mario a grandson of his mother’s friend, but as he dresses and prepares to leave the next morning he discovers that the boy had actually been a big fan of his work for some time. So without discussing it at all, Lorenz panics and hastily dashes off telling a startled Mario that he would never have had sex with him if he had known he was just a groupie.

    The plot unravels slowly as the family are hesitantly drawn together by their mother’s decline, and Sophie has to finally deal with her own failing marriage, and both siblings make the startling discovery that it wasn’t in fact their mother who had been having ‘affairs’ when they were young as they had always suspected, but it had been their overbearing and distant father, now long dead. And all his lovers were in fact men.

    Jaded Lorenz’s humor never seems to lighten as he tries to deal with his impatient Literary Agent from afar, and with sullen Chantal a young neighbor of his mother’s who he suspects is supplying Rosie with alcohol. If that is not enough, at his mother’s insistence, Mario turns up to help doing oddjobs about the house.

    And then just when you are about to despair about this family, Rosie reluctantly but with her usual style, decides to make a go of living in the Seniors home that they forced her into, Sophie gets back with her estranged husband for another reconciliation, and Lorenz stops being angry and suspicious of the world just in time to realise that the long term love of his life that he has always wanted is actually there on his doorstep in the shape of Mario. And to top it all, his writer’s block disappears as he sets about writing his latest novel based on Rosie, and the ‘triangle’ he discovered when he explored his father’s past.

    The movie is the latest work of Swiss gay filmmaker Marcel Gisler (who like Lorenz was born in Altstätten and works in Berlin, however I could not establish if this is an autobiographical piece). Gisler’s movie output is infrequent at best… the last one was 14 years ago… his usual fare are more explicitly gay and complicated, and this one is definitely his most refined and subtlest. Lorenz’s long struggle for happiness is finally determined by resolving the questions that arise from the troubling nightmares he still has about his father, and from being able to accept and enjoy the love of his family simply for what it is.

    It all works… albeit a little drawn out… not just because of the script with its scattered passages of dark humour, but also because of the two excellent central performances. The veteran Swiss Actress Sibylle Brunner, in her first ever leading role, is rightly picking up awards for her devastatingly wonderful turn as Rosie, and Swiss actor Fabian Krüger is pitch perfect as the dour faced Lorenz who waits until the last reel to smile.

    This movie is being hailed in some quarters as New Swiss Cinema and worthy of a world audience. I’m not sure if I really knew much about ‘Old Swiss Cinema ‘to make any comment, other than to say it definitely is well-worth seeing.

    A Man, His Lover And His Mother is Available to buy on DVD from Amazon