a superbly shot, if somewhat surreal tale of gay first love
With the obvious exception of the like of Big Eden,Brokeback Mountain and Red Dirt,
relatively few stateside gay films leave the urban metropolis to venture forth into the great outdoors. Only as this assured piece of filmmaking from writer and director James Bolton goes to show, coming to terms with your sexuality is an emotional experience, no matter where you live.
For here, painfully shy teen Nathan has been moved from town to town, with the cotton fields of Louisiana representing the latest relocation bid from a father only too well aware that this change of environment stands little chance of uniting their fragmented family unit. Ill-at-ease with his father and with a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Nathan takes refuge in his growing friendship with boy next door Roy; an older student at the same high school who doubles as the local bus driver.
Becoming study partners and a lot more beside real quick, it isn't long before Roy introduces Nathan to his friends Burke and Randy, with the four soon to be found setting off on a camping trip into the bayou and an old plantation house said to be haunted by ghosts of the past. Only is the past about to catch up with Nathan, given this teenager
somehow appears far more sexually aware, than what an introspective boy of his years should be?
Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Jim Grimsley, this page to screen adaptation brilliantly captures the close bond between two teenage boys who dare to fall in love with each other in a devout community, clearly not as open to the sexual spectrum of life, as other parts of America. That many gay adolescents live in fear of their
homosexuality being discovered in such areas, is not in doubt. Yet other teenagers also live in fear for variant reasons. And it is here that Diana Scarwid as Nathan's mother Vivian steals the show, even away from Thomas Jay Ryan as the creepy father of the piece, with her intense scenes letting us in on the fact that something is seriously wrong in the family home.
And that's just the point, given there's a lot going on in this feature, one laced with a strong sense of foreboding to the extent that you just know that things are not going to turn out for the better. But it's all well played, with lush cinematography throughout, let alone Stephan Bender as Nathan and Max (son of Nicolas Roeg and Theresa Russell)
Roeg as Roy, having enough 'touch me' sequences to more than keep the boys happy. True the final scene is as ambiguous as the book, but then this sensitive tale of gay first love is equally that of a superbly shot, if somewhat surreal work. It remains hauntingly beautiful.
screened as part of the 23rd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
With the obvious exception of the like of 
Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Jim Grimsley, this page to screen adaptation brilliantly captures the close bond between two teenage boys who dare to fall in love with each other in a devout community, clearly not as open to the sexual spectrum of life, as other parts of America. That many gay adolescents live in fear of their
homosexuality being discovered in such areas, is not in doubt. Yet other teenagers also live in fear for variant reasons. And it is here that Diana Scarwid as Nathan's mother Vivian steals the show, even away from Thomas Jay Ryan as the creepy father of the piece, with her intense scenes letting us in on the fact that something is seriously wrong in the family home.
