Despite the fine production values and strong acting, this film is nothing more than an effort to pass off one man's navel-gazing as something worth examining. It is not.
You find out fairly early on that one of the two men, Dean, is actually married. He's invited his old flame Alex to visit, and you're lead to believe --but before you find out Dean is married -- that Dean is crushing on Alex. But he actually is. But he's also happily married. And that's the problem. A huge problem.
You initially think Alex is the one who's got it together, since he seems so cocky and since he, at least initially, appears to be "the one who got away." But you find out that that isn't true, and that he's still carrying a flame for Dean though he left him behind years ago.
In examining Dean's angst, the film becomes a mapping of Dean's psychology, of "what I want." And to that sorry end, he effectively uses Alex to resolve his mid-life crisis, which has to be one of the most dishonest, horrible things someone can do to another person.
When Alex confronts Dean and asks him point blank what he wants, after telling Dean what he, Alex, wants, Dean dissimulates. What is likely meant to be an exploration of Dean's mixed emotions is, rather, a horrifying glance into the mind of someone so self-absorbed that he can't see Alex as a human being with his own needs. Indeed, that the film renders Alex as a cipher cements this fact. At the end, Dean buries a picture of Alex that Dean drew of Alex long ago, when they met. Alex had brought it with him and given it to Dean. The burying of the picture supposedly shows, finally, some resolve, that Dean finally grows a spine. But he buries the picture along with a dead mouse, who's drowned in the pool. I don't know about you, but that is psychologically warped. The metaphor of burying the picture is plain enough: the relationship is dead. But a dead mouse too? Ick.
The film ends with Dean taking a call from his lover -- he's finally got reception at his somewhat remote location and so now he's connected to his lover after not being able to earlier -- Get it?. Alex is gone, and there's no sense he ever even was a part of Dean's life. Like the multitude of dead mice that drown in Dean's pool, Alex has just been collateral damage. Dean is less likable than Donald Trump, and that's saying something.
If there ever was a picture not worth making, this is it. I mean, aren't there already enough narcissists out in the world ruining the lives of others? An ugly, uncomfortable film.
You find out fairly early on that one of the two men, Dean, is actually married. He's invited his old flame Alex to visit, and you're lead to believe --but before you find out Dean is married -- that Dean is crushing on Alex. But he actually is. But he's also happily married. And that's the problem. A huge problem.
You initially think Alex is the one who's got it together, since he seems so cocky and since he, at least initially, appears to be "the one who got away." But you find out that that isn't true, and that he's still carrying a flame for Dean though he left him behind years ago.
In examining Dean's angst, the film becomes a mapping of Dean's psychology, of "what I want." And to that sorry end, he effectively uses Alex to resolve his mid-life crisis, which has to be one of the most dishonest, horrible things someone can do to another person.
When Alex confronts Dean and asks him point blank what he wants, after telling Dean what he, Alex, wants, Dean dissimulates. What is likely meant to be an exploration of Dean's mixed emotions is, rather, a horrifying glance into the mind of someone so self-absorbed that he can't see Alex as a human being with his own needs. Indeed, that the film renders Alex as a cipher cements this fact. At the end, Dean buries a picture of Alex that Dean drew of Alex long ago, when they met. Alex had brought it with him and given it to Dean. The burying of the picture supposedly shows, finally, some resolve, that Dean finally grows a spine. But he buries the picture along with a dead mouse, who's drowned in the pool. I don't know about you, but that is psychologically warped. The metaphor of burying the picture is plain enough: the relationship is dead. But a dead mouse too? Ick.
The film ends with Dean taking a call from his lover -- he's finally got reception at his somewhat remote location and so now he's connected to his lover after not being able to earlier -- Get it?. Alex is gone, and there's no sense he ever even was a part of Dean's life. Like the multitude of dead mice that drown in Dean's pool, Alex has just been collateral damage. Dean is less likable than Donald Trump, and that's saying something.
If there ever was a picture not worth making, this is it. I mean, aren't there already enough narcissists out in the world ruining the lives of others? An ugly, uncomfortable film.