User Reviews

Harry and Max is an odd little film. It's a film that, quite frankly, I'm surprised any American director/producer/film company/actor would tackle. It's a film that has brotherly incest as an active thread running through it. The trouble is, the incest angle really isn't reason enough for the film - there needs to be another, stronger plot around which to build the film.

Bryce Johnson as Harry and Cole Williams (singer/songwriter/actor Paul Williams' son) as Max are not only engaging and believable as brothers, but downright talented actors. You can see the wheels turning in Max's head as he mulls things over and over. Harry, a burgeoning alcoholic, seems sufficiently numbed to reality.

There is no deficiency when it comes to the acting ability of this cast of quite surprisingly fine actors. Rain Phoenix (River and Joachin's little sister) is believable as the boys' friend/lover and Michelle Phillips does a believable job as the pushy/b*t*hy stage mom.

What is on the screen is thoughtful and thought provoking. My problem with the film stems from what ISN'T on the screen.

The film is about 23 year old Harry (a boy band pop idol with a waning popularity) and 16 year old Max (an up and coming boy band pop idol). Harry lives in New York and Max lives at home with their mother - a woman with whom Harry does not get along. Where Dad is, is anyone's guess.

Max freely acknowledges that he is gay. Further, to Harry, he freely acknowledges that he loves his brother Harry, but in a romantic sense as well as a brotherly sense. We can tell that Harry feels the same, but on some level knows that it is wrong. (He allows Max to have oral sex with him, but doesn't encourage it) Max is so young that he doesn't really care. Max wants Harry and he's fairly blatant about that. Harry wants Max (he masturbates looking at publicity pictures of Max in a teen magazine), but can't bring himself to commit - instead he seduces the 40 year old former yoga instructor who slept with Max several years earlier. It would seem Harry wants to learn how this older man managed to create a "connection" with Max that he, himself, seems unable to develop...or is it simply that he doesn't want to be one upped by his little brother and he wants to know just what it was that Max experienced with this man? Max tries the straight side and sleeps with Nikki (Rain Phoenix), Harry's former girlfriend. After this happens, for some reason, Harry feels the need to divulge to Nikki that he and Max have previously been lovers.

Why? To what end? Max is able to move on with his life, but Harry seems destined to pine after his little brother and drift further and further into alcoholism.

What's the message of the movie? Is there supposed to be a message? Frankly, it doesn't need a message, but since the script is somewhat fragmented, it seems to be trying to provide us with a message.

Now, don't get me wrong, I liked the movie just fine. However, it irritated the devil out of me, because the very realistic conversations between Harry and Max never fully delivered the complete message to me, the viewer. While realistic, in that the two of them reference incidents in their past, we, the audience are never privy to those incidents. They are only vaguely referred to - as two people who share the same past would quite believably do. However, WE don't know what happened. There should have been a flashback sequence (however brief) of the often alluded to incident in Bermuda where the boys initially consummated their incestuous relationship.

What's the background situation with Harry and Roxanne, his New York girlfriend? A couple more lines of dialogue could have cleared this up.

Why did Harry dump Nikki? A couple more lines of dialogue could have cleared this up too. We just know it ended.

In the beginning, we have no reason or reference to understand that Harry and Max are in the music industry. They do not feel compelled to sing or play music. If Harry is as driven as Max says, and Harry is writing his own music, then wouldn't he have at least dragged along a guitar on their weekend camping trip? In the last scene of the film, we are to believe that Max has not only moved on with his life in the music industry, but he has found a male lover with whom he is completely satisfied. From a psychological standpoint, this out of character. He initiated the relationship with his brother and pushed for it to go further, time and again. Harry also wanted the relationship, but just didn't know how to allow himself to "be there". Harry is now the one pining for Max and now Max is completely rebuffing him and confidently so. Moreso, Max seems somewhat disgusted by his older brother. I don't think this is fitting with the character.

This is a short film by feature length standards. I would love to have had about fifteen more minutes of expositional material that could have more fully developed the situations and characters. Learning about the character's background only via the DVD jewel box is not the best way to introduce the audience to them.

On first viewing, I thought this movie was okay. Rain Phoenix was excellent, and the guys (Bryce Johnson and Cole Williams) were nice to look at. But then I started thinking *way* too much on things.

This movie disturbed me. Not, as one might think, because of the incest, but because of the way the writer(s) handled Harry's character. There never seems to be any addressing of it, so I'm not sure what, exactly, was intended. But Harry spends the *entire movie* trying to destroy his brother. Foremost, he tells Nikki (Phoenix) and the yoga instructor about him and Max, supposedly out of jealousy/curiosity/protectiveness. As a followup, Harry terrorizes his mother and, for no explainable reason, ruins Max's previously decent relationship with her. And the only motive we are hit over the head with is that Harry is a drunk, so this is just what drunk, unfortunate child celebrities do. OKAY. Perhaps, though, this all *does* fit into the self-destructive excuse. Because, if you think about it, when Harry looks at Max, all he is really seeing is himself minus seven years. He thinks that he he can fix himself if he "fixes" Max, when really, because he *is* self-destructive, he is unwittingly destroying Max.

Like I said, though, none of this is acknowledged. That is bothersome enough, but the worst of it is that the entire *incest* issue is basically unaddressed. It starts out moving enough with Max's perspective on it, but when Harry becomes more of the focal point, everything gets jumbled. *Now* it is only about love, and it is treated like a romance film with jealousy and psychotic tendencies. Max is appalled by the situation, but NOT because Harry is his brother. The same seems to go for Nikki and the yoga instructor - they're disgusted because of how Harry conducts himself, but *not* because he is lusting after his *sixteen-year-old brother.* So there is an elephant on one side of the room, an eight-foot purple polka-dotted penguin on the other, and the writer decided to aim at the shabbily-painted wall instead.

I give this movie a 5/10, because it does try to do SOMETHING, I just can't quite point out WHAT.

One other poster commented that the movie was short by the nominal length of feature length films. Not only does it feel short and, as others noted, somewhat stilted, but it also feels incomplete, and more like a collection of unfinished scenes in a very early screenplay than the third feature by someone who had previously shown some talent.

While rather talky, what we get is posture and verbosity without information or artistic transcendence. Some of the scenes simply don't make sense as presented, even with any amount of supposition on the part of the audience. On a different level, some things are either too rush or additional explanations must be given. For example, it simply lacks logic that on the one hand, the older brother (Harry) would reject the youngest advances on the basis that it wasn't a good idea or the pretense that he's not straight and then some 24 to 48 hours later be jerking off to Max's teen bop publicity shots. It also doesn't ring true that Max would so relentlessly chase after the older brother (with both sexual AND romantic feelings) and then turn on a dime and turn away from the opportunity to pursue this relentless desire.

While the possibility that two close brothers might go after the former partners of one another (in the case of Max, the gay brother to go after Harry's ex, Max supposed best friend in LA or for Harry to go after Max's only sexual and perhaps serious relationship, with a man old enough to be both their father's), there are just other problems with these scenarios: Why would Nikki have sex with the brother of her ex, especially if the brother is a close friend and one she likely would know is gay? Why would an older man into a blond 16 then agree to have sex with the older, darker haired 23 year old brother who comes off as if he's there to meet the older man to complain about his relationship with the younger boy? The logic might not have been so lacking with further exposition and some flashbacks. While intriguing and technically proficient, particularly for an independent film, and also well filmed and photographed, with very good performances, particularly by the leads, the extreme weakness of the story, plotting and script make it difficult to assign a higher score to this film.

HARRY AND MAX goes where films have dared (at least American films): consensual incestuous relationships between two brothers. Writer/director Christopher Münch ('The Sleepy Time Gal', 'The Hours and Times', 'Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day') has previously proved that he is unafraid to take on tough subject matter and make it poetically beautiful. In HARRY AND MAX he has created an intelligent reverie about hopes, dreams, expectations, disappointments, and filial love that is as fascinating as it is unique.

Max (Cole Williams) is a 16-year-old teen idol whose career is managed by his mother (Michelle Phillips). His 23-year-old brother Harry (Bryce Johnson) began the family trend toward teen band idols and now is living on his past glories in music trips to the still-adoring masses in Japan while he sinks into alcoholism. Max longs for companionship and more with Harry and as the film opens we find them on a long-awaited camping trip in California's San Gabriel mountains, exploring the old Mt Lowe Railway. Their similarities and differences unfold in natural, unforced conversation and when night falls and they retire to their tent, Max makes physical overtures to Harry, overtures Harry does not resist. It is clear through occult references to a family outing in Bermuda that the two have had intimate relations but the details are intentionally left foggy. For the remainder of the weekend trip the two brothers confide their family problems (Harry never felt as accepted as Max and left home early on), Max's gay affair with 40-year-old Josiah (Tom Gilroy), Harry's current affair with Roxanne (Roni Deitz) and his mishandled affair with Nikki (Rain Phoenix), a girl who subsequently married and divorced and is now a close friend with Max.

Once the inherent tensions are blocked out, the two brothers explore the current paramours of the other: Harry seduces Josiah, Max attempts to seduce Nikki, and the secret of the brothers' incestuous relationship becomes open knowledge. Harry truly loves Max and Max returns that love but feels Harry must find his own life without leaning on Max's new idol popularity. The final solutions are unveiled in a time jump two years later when Harry and Max and Max's lover Jordan (Justin Zachary) meet in a conversation that more fully explains the differences and similarities between the two brothers.

Christopher Münch keeps the story rolling with casual precision, using effective sun-drenched flashbacks to illuminate the boys' childhood. He has garnered fine performances from his cast: Cole Williams and Bryce Johnson are superb and cameo roles by Michelle Phillips, Justin Zachary, and Tom Gilroy are first rate. The only weak link is Rain Phoenix who mimes her way through the pivotal role of Nikki, reducing the tension when it should be building. The sexual scenes are handled with utmost sophistication, sensual without being graphic. In all, this is a terrific little film, small in budget and technique but enormous in thought and impact. Highly recommended.

Grady Harp

Reading some of the comments, I am nearly speechless that others (and I mean no offense to your taste) liked this movie, or thought that it was well written. The writing was horrible, the situations were horrible, Harry's behavior was that of someone on meth - cold one moment, rejecting Max's advances, and then asking another person if Max had the same feelings for him that he had for Max. Incredible! I honestly saw no sense in it whatsoever.

To compare this to other forms of art, saying that this is a painting - it's kindergarten finger painting at best.

How this was nominated for an award I'll never know.

I felt that this was an amazing film, and very, very brave indeed considering that this film has probably the most blatant and non-judgemental theme of consensual incest that I have ever seen in a film.

I felt that it was let down by its ending, as well as by the massive age difference between the two characters (also with the age of the secondary character of the teacher)... but this film still stayed with me for weeks after I watched it. Even as I talked to people at work, I kept getting flashes of the scenes from the film, and I don't think that has happened with any other film, so on a whole variety of levels it definitely worked. It's just a pity that the filmmaker confused the already very taboo storyline of a consensual incestuous relationship between two brothers by making one so young and by making such an age difference between the two.

I also felt that the ending let the film down, because there was no consummation of the relationship and desires between the two brothers. Perhaps I'm being perverted, but I really felt unsatisfied that they didn't end up together, or at the very least to fully consummate their relationship; it just felt false that they wouldn't have (a glaring example being the scene towards the end where Bryce Johnson's character is naked on the bed).

I would still give this film a 9 out of 10, but it could have been just so much better with a better ending and if they had've made the brothers aged 18 and 20-something (then they would have been 16 and 20-something when they began the relationship)... and even if they were to end up apart, I just felt it could've been explained better.

Lastly, I loved Bryce Johnson's character and I felt so sorry for him at the end as he seemed so utterly sad, helpless and alone at the end of the film.

"Harry + Max" is a story about two brothers: their lives, their childhood memories and also the seemingly incestuous nature of their relationship.

But what is incest and why is it important to clarify the term? There is a basic incest, universally known as the Oedipus complex, the carnal union between mother and son, which is considered in many cultures the ultimate taboo. Basic incest, as Claude Levi-Strauss explains it, is only a way to resolve the impasse between the autochthony of man and sexual union. Autochthonous man means a man that is born from the Earth itself, and most cultures explain the origin of men and women in a similar way: a sacred plant or fruit gives birth to the first man, or man comes directly from a sacred land, a river or a lake. This mythical origin of man collides with the certainty that man is the product of a sexual union, and thus the Oedipus complex pretends to resolve this impasse.

But there is another incest, a non-basic one, which focuses on forbidden relationships between members of the same family (brothers, sisters). And this incest certainly does not respond to an archetypical or mythical structure. It's only something that defies social boundaries. It's also a violation of law, a law that comes (like all primitive laws) from a consuetudinary norm. The law is indeed the consolidation of habits and costumes from any given people, and as they are mere practices they are neither right nor wrong.

But before consuetudinary norm can thoroughly transform into law there are cracks. And it is between one of such cracks that Max, the younger brother, defies established limitations. He has always admired his older brother, but as adolescence strikes him he finds out that admiration soon turns into sexual desire. At the beginning of the film Harry doesn't live in the house anymore. He's a boy band star, he has had successful songs and he's famous. And Max is also immersed in the pop industry. They are both good looking and young, but nobody knows what their secret is. They seem to wander, at moments, in an in-between area of sexual ambiguity. As boy band stars they are the protagonists of young girls fantasies but are forever condemned by males as an effeminate product created to please a certain audience. It doesn't come as a shock to see that most girls enjoy these boy bands whereas guys are into different musical genres altogether. The movie elicits the possibility of Max engaging in heterosexual activity at the same time that his brother Harry tampers with the option of having sexual intercourse with an older man.

Christopher Munch explores fissures in social structures and provides us with a tale of brotherly and non-platonic love, self-discovery and ambiguity. Whether or not these subjects are appropriately depicted by Munch is up to the spectator... But what can never be denied is Munch's courageous effort of swimming upstream with a story of a most peculiar incest: brother on brother.