I'm uncertain on how to characterise this film if I'm honest, it has been hard to review. At various points of the film, you wander between daytime Telenovela and uni film school submission with a heavy dose of fever dream and Hallmark channel.
The acting in general is on par with small town local theatre, though I do wonder if direction and the material they are working from might have something to do with that. Any attempt at acting is rather ruined by the poor continuity, for just one example, in a two person scene we have no establishing shot but go straight into an over the shoulder shot which is fine except that bizarrely, one character is stood, but seated for the reverse shot.
This is not a sub 90-minute film, but it should have been with decent editing. What we have is 2 hours of loosely strung together scenes with poor continuity, poor direction, acting with more ham than a supermarket delicatessen aisle.
The premise in itself is not a terrible one, and perhaps fleshed out with a splash of warmth and realism, good direction, a tight script and a decent budget it would have been a good watch.
A rundown of the "plot" follows below, and contains spoilers.
Our film opens with a comedy drunk loudly raging about the price of milk, or some such thing, then we cut to our teen hero Billy getting caught whilst snogging his best friend two scenes Rick by his alcoholic religious father who promptly throws him out. Teen hitches a lift on a dirt track with an unseen driver heading to LA, our grateful hero gets in the back like he's ordered a taxi, rude.
Intermission - Long drawn-out rambling section that lasts 30 minutes of scene setting with elderly Mark the victim of glued together lips and his creepy-middle-aged-whispering son James along with flamboyant family friend Thomas.
Back to our teen hero and he's sitting in a café which we presume is in an undisclosed location in Los Angeles. He asks the cute water if there are any jobs, he says no but there's a notice board and hey man, have free food and lodgings. A bold move considering they've only just met each other but maybe that's LA for you? On the notice board, our hero discovers an ad for a live-in carer.
Our cute waiter and hero share the small bed, but apparently still maintaining room for Jesus between them and decide to hang for the day, which seems to involve our hero borrowing cute waiter's mobile to call about the job.
Our hero heads for the interview, and it seems that glue lips and creepy whisperer are quite happy about the teen fresh meat that has landed in their laps, or at least close enough. There's a lovely, touching moment of (unlike the water) sparkling tight dialogue:
James: "Oh I would love a glass of water" (to no one asking) "Billy, dad?" Billy: "Yeah, yeah, I would love one, the walk over here was longer than I expected so.." Mark: "I'd love one too, thanks son" James: "Right, that's three waters coming right up." (Hooray for hydration!)
And of course, at that moment our hero teen with no experience of being a carer other than calling someone "sir" is hired to look after wheelchair bound glue lips and offered money and a room by creepy whisperer. Some stuff happens, at this point, visits to the park for wheelchair japery and longing close-ups of a freshly dusted vagrant in some kind of Mary Poppins inspired moment but otherwise we're back to 20 minutes of lights out scene setting.
Clearly, our intrepid director wanted to try a 3-way screen split, something they clearly have been wanting to do since the opening sequence of Dallas. We launch into our 3-way with our hero, cute waiter, and his mysteriously hitherto absent mother, I think at this point we glean that our hero is having a night out with the lads that night and "mommy "is on the scene.
Our hero presumably goes out on the lash, because the next time we meet there's the sound effect of a car screeching off and he returns to find creepy whisperer sat in the dark in the garden with his photo album of semi naked men. Our hero wells up, as apparently no one liked him and he's just a "cute little nurse who should stay at home". Creepy whisper realising that the grooming has paid off and this is his moment says some kind words "You'll be a great lover for someone one day" and leans in for his well-earned kiss.
Well now that teen hero and creepy whisperer are an item, at least presumably as they don't seem to have banged, a scene that we are quite grateful not to have seen. Some faux melodrama occurs, wills are written, glue lips snuffs it after saying nice words to flamboyant (was he earning a producers credit?). We end with our teen hero married to creepy whisperer, and cute waiter hooking up with two scenes Rick.
Fin.
The acting in general is on par with small town local theatre, though I do wonder if direction and the material they are working from might have something to do with that. Any attempt at acting is rather ruined by the poor continuity, for just one example, in a two person scene we have no establishing shot but go straight into an over the shoulder shot which is fine except that bizarrely, one character is stood, but seated for the reverse shot.
This is not a sub 90-minute film, but it should have been with decent editing. What we have is 2 hours of loosely strung together scenes with poor continuity, poor direction, acting with more ham than a supermarket delicatessen aisle.
The premise in itself is not a terrible one, and perhaps fleshed out with a splash of warmth and realism, good direction, a tight script and a decent budget it would have been a good watch.
A rundown of the "plot" follows below, and contains spoilers.
Our film opens with a comedy drunk loudly raging about the price of milk, or some such thing, then we cut to our teen hero Billy getting caught whilst snogging his best friend two scenes Rick by his alcoholic religious father who promptly throws him out. Teen hitches a lift on a dirt track with an unseen driver heading to LA, our grateful hero gets in the back like he's ordered a taxi, rude.
Intermission - Long drawn-out rambling section that lasts 30 minutes of scene setting with elderly Mark the victim of glued together lips and his creepy-middle-aged-whispering son James along with flamboyant family friend Thomas.
Back to our teen hero and he's sitting in a café which we presume is in an undisclosed location in Los Angeles. He asks the cute water if there are any jobs, he says no but there's a notice board and hey man, have free food and lodgings. A bold move considering they've only just met each other but maybe that's LA for you? On the notice board, our hero discovers an ad for a live-in carer.
Our cute waiter and hero share the small bed, but apparently still maintaining room for Jesus between them and decide to hang for the day, which seems to involve our hero borrowing cute waiter's mobile to call about the job.
Our hero heads for the interview, and it seems that glue lips and creepy whisperer are quite happy about the teen fresh meat that has landed in their laps, or at least close enough. There's a lovely, touching moment of (unlike the water) sparkling tight dialogue:
James: "Oh I would love a glass of water" (to no one asking) "Billy, dad?" Billy: "Yeah, yeah, I would love one, the walk over here was longer than I expected so.." Mark: "I'd love one too, thanks son" James: "Right, that's three waters coming right up." (Hooray for hydration!)
And of course, at that moment our hero teen with no experience of being a carer other than calling someone "sir" is hired to look after wheelchair bound glue lips and offered money and a room by creepy whisperer. Some stuff happens, at this point, visits to the park for wheelchair japery and longing close-ups of a freshly dusted vagrant in some kind of Mary Poppins inspired moment but otherwise we're back to 20 minutes of lights out scene setting.
Clearly, our intrepid director wanted to try a 3-way screen split, something they clearly have been wanting to do since the opening sequence of Dallas. We launch into our 3-way with our hero, cute waiter, and his mysteriously hitherto absent mother, I think at this point we glean that our hero is having a night out with the lads that night and "mommy "is on the scene.
Our hero presumably goes out on the lash, because the next time we meet there's the sound effect of a car screeching off and he returns to find creepy whisperer sat in the dark in the garden with his photo album of semi naked men. Our hero wells up, as apparently no one liked him and he's just a "cute little nurse who should stay at home". Creepy whisper realising that the grooming has paid off and this is his moment says some kind words "You'll be a great lover for someone one day" and leans in for his well-earned kiss.
Well now that teen hero and creepy whisperer are an item, at least presumably as they don't seem to have banged, a scene that we are quite grateful not to have seen. Some faux melodrama occurs, wills are written, glue lips snuffs it after saying nice words to flamboyant (was he earning a producers credit?). We end with our teen hero married to creepy whisperer, and cute waiter hooking up with two scenes Rick.
Fin.