Just Say Love (2009) User Reviews

We're given an Enchanted Fairytale....with a happy.........

[arizona-philm-phan · 23 August 2010]

.........ending. And you know what? We deserve it!

Having seen years of gay film productions (particularly romances) on video tape, Laser and DVD, for me most have been crap (any disagreement?). BUT....this one can take a proud and high position in the Top-12 of gay dramas. Excellent writing/conversion to screen, great staging.......they're in here. Still and all, it's Matthew Jaeger (Guy / Guido) and Robert Mammana (Doug) who breathe life into this work and into Us as we watch. Captivated and drawn into their simple lives, we see them become Us---you and me. That's right, who out here wouldn't want a man of openness, raw needs, funniness......wouldn't "physically" want such a man as Doug? Would anyone of us turn down a Guy's perceptiveness, depth of feeling, and indefinable ability to draw us out of ourselves?

So in the end, this whole thing (this "Just Say Love") has fallen to and been carried on the shoulders of these two amazing actors---actors who didn't just learn lines....but who lived their parts. In tribute to them, I feel compelled to say I can think of no past performers in gay filmdom who could have done better. Can you?

PS--Oh...and if Guy wasn't "disappointed".....how could we be?

(( I awarded "Brokeback" a 9/10. This work is close in satisfaction given ))

Tedious

[ChicagoMan41 · 1/10 · 28 April 2021]

I tired very quickly of Guy's helplessness and whining and began to focus on that horrific lump on the left side of his face, which I think needs a biopsy.

Emotional abuse meets Disney-happy ending

[schorschi100 · 2/10 · 19 June 2022]

The film is about two guys meeting up for a quicky, ending up in a sort-of no-strings-attached situation (with all the derived clichés). The one guy is a wannabe-witty-but-omg-whiner who endures an emotionally abusive relationship, while the other one, supposedly straight, enjoys a good ... service once in a while. Two thirds of the movie turn around the gay guy swallowing down indirect insults (for everyone who has even a little self-respect) just to meet again with the "hero" he's hopelessly fallen for, while in the last few minutes everything gets miraculously resolved in a Disney-like happy ending (which couldn't be further from any realistic outcome possible). The whole takes play on a minimalistic theater stage (something that might have worked for Dogville but pathetically fails here, since there is no real plot substance to substitute for the stage props missing). Characters do not really evolve, conflicts are not analyzed and resolved but unexpectedly disappear, while cinematography is on purpose absent (I do not consider changing the filming angle cinematography). Matthew Jaeger and Robert Mammana do a decent job trying to act, but the script is so shallow, that they have nothing to work with.

The film is supposed to be an adaptation of a stage play by David J. Mauriello (although googling for the original play didn't result in any information whatsoever). The story might have been enough for a ten-minute short film at best (in which case the development and the catharsis are left as homework to the viewers), but nothing longer. If the author wantonly recites Plato, he should first know (and apply) Aristotele's definition of Greek tragedy (theater 101).

Last-minute addition: Reading my review again, I realized that I may be overreacting (in fact much more than usually in my critiques), but watching it made me angry. I decided not to soften my tone because I don't want others to also waste their time (or if they do, to at least be aware of the risk they're taking). The most important reason for my anger, however, is the subtle insinuation throughout the movie, that enduring an emotional abuse may magically pay off in the end.

Flawed, but worth it.

[spikearrin · 8/10 · 15 April 2010]

This movie may have its issues (the dialogue can be somewhat painful at times, as can the direction) but there are two big saving graces in this film that make it worth a watch: Matthew Jaeger and Robert Mammana. Both actors fit into their roles wonderfully and their chemistry feels very genuine; simple, natural, and therefore, it is easy to invest in their characters' main conflict - that is, the idea of love that transcends socially constructed sexual definitions.

The art direction is also fairly interesting - rather than the standard, the film is shot in a direct stage-to-film aesthetic - one set, dramatic lighting, and the simplicity works in it's favour, though it can seem heavy-handed at times.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Something different, with two amazing performances that will stay with you.

Quality Story Telling

[kschles-67905 · 9/10 · 25 October 2021]

This was originally a play. The movie is a filmed version. The writing and acting are first rate. Very emotional journey for the two protagonists one of whom is openly gay, while the other is supposedly straight. They meet in a park and decide to hook up for some quick sex. They keep meeting, and the gay guy falls hard for the straight guy. I was pleased with the ending. So many gay themed dramas feel the need to kill one or more of their characters. It was a pleasant change to watch a life affirming story.

Oddly formal and cold for a love story

[jm10701 · 27 April 2011]

For a love story, this movie is oddly formal, stylized and cold. It is a lot like kabuki, the highly formal, highly stylized classical Japanese dance/drama. It is the most tightly scripted and choreographed movie I have ever seen: not one word, not one gesture by either character is spontaneous. It feels more like very expertly executed computer animation than like two human men falling in love.

I think the basic problem is the Platonic philosophy that dominates and runs insistently through the whole play. That philosophy - that the body is only a shallow, essentially meaningless reflection of spiritual reality - is itself so cold and so formal that it practically demands a treatment like this.

That is sad. This could have been touching and meaningful, but it ends up being just very well executed technique on the part of everyone involved: the director, actors, set designer, cinematographer, etc. Like kabuki, it is fascinating to watch, but the fascination is purely intellectual, just like Plato. It is a peculiar and unsatisfying way to tell a love story.

Excellent film! See it twice!!

[JamisonRiverwood · 10/10 · 9 July 2021]

The uncluttered staging of this work allowed the viewer to concentrate on the performers and what was being said. The impact was visceral, and yet the subject matter of the dialogue intellectually stimulating. Performances by Jaeger and Mammana were outstanding. The emotional intensity just below the surface was gripping. Someone finally expressed what I have felt in my life.

Scenes like waiting at the corner were so expressive....no need for words! I've been there.

A Stage Production on Film

[donoliver-55195 · 9/10 · 20 March 2023]

I started watching it thinking it was going to be a how to i erase this.

The back and forth of the conversation on the bench, my thought was this guy should get up and run. But it was brilliantly written that i had to keep watching their exchange. Was the guy not quite right? Were they both not quite right?

The acting of both characters was really spot on and believable.

I have had conversations with someone that I was not sure if i should run away. And stayed.

The fantasy part of doug returning was confusing . Did he really or was it a dream?

I watched it until the end.

And did not think how do I get this time back? As with many movies.

Really liked it.

As to my crazy conversation, we became friends. And i think of him often. And hope he is safe, he moved away.

Just say coffee...

[sandover · 22 February 2012]

and probably this movie will fly away in panic. Do you want the other in a purely organic, holistic way? Sure, just make sure he is decaffeinated and harmless.

For what is the price the two boys pay for coming together in the perfect threesome, if there was ever one? Well, they take sex out. Fairytale or not, this film has an ideological agenda, guys, sorry to say. Why not take the more fleshed-out dilemma, that is love the one we desire, and desire sexually, with all the pathos and antagonism this has, rather than a bleached out version of Plato, that fits, oh so holistically and conveniently with healthy organic diet, love for animals, procreation and yoga? Remembrance is the royal way to love, to the platonic "good"?

Remember then Whitman, remember Frank O'Hara, two sublime poets who sang carnal love, or as Walt said "I sing the body electric"!

What is happening to you America, land of the roughs? Are you passing from blow-jobs to searching for feel-good kittens, bypassing the obvious desire for man-to-man copulation? If as Doug says at some point, having Guy laying on his back is like having wings, why then they fly nowhere. This exclamation being surrounded by the pap of "would you not love me if I had no penis?" is all the more insidious because this obfuscates the fact that, well, their relationship does not seem consummated, to put it that way...

America, remember your male camaraderie and give us a film worthy of man's beauty as he sweats his face in the work of love! Or, as Frank O'Hara put it better than I ever will, here is his simply called "Poem":

Twin spheres full of fur and noise/rolling softly up my belly beddening on my chest/and then my mouth is full of suns/that softness seems so anterior to that hardness/that mouth that is used to talking too much/speaks at last of the tenderness of Ancient China/and the love of form the Odyssies/each tendril is covered with seed pearls/your hair is like a tree in an ice storm/jetting I commit the immortal spark jetting/you give that form to my life the Ancients loved/those suns are smiling as they move across the sky/and as your chariot I soon become a myth/which heaven is it that we inhabit for so long a time/it must be discovered soon and disappear