Movie of the Year: KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
Ira Sachs’ authentic, explicit, occasionally bruising
but ultimately hopeful depiction of the ups and downs of an addiction-fueled
gay relationship over the course of a decade emerges as the finest gay-themed
drama in several years. Danish actor Thure Lindhardt and Zachary Booth
(best known as Michael Hewes on TV’s Damages)
command attention throughout as they dance their codependent tango but, to its
great credit, the film never becomes histrionic and Sachs treats both wounded
men with nothing but compassion. (Booth’s character is actually
bisexual, a big-screen rarity.) Contemporary gay-themed movies just keep
getting better and better — see previous Dearie Award Movies of the Year A Single Man and Weekend
for further evidence of this — and Keep
the Lights On now takes the crown.
Honorable Mentions: THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER and LES MISERABLES
Perks, starring a post-Harry Potter Emma Watson and rising stars
Ezra Miller and Logan Lerman, emerged as one of the year’s biggest indie
hits after doing consistent business at the box office for several
months. While not primarily LGBT-themed, Miller gives an exhilarating performance
as an unapologetically gay high school student in this cross-generational
success.
And though the long-awaited movie version of the long-running
stage musical Les Miserables
didn’t please all fans or critics, it is suffused with enough emotional
and spiritual intensity, tortured romance and visual flourishes to fill several
movies, not to mention a spectacular lead performance by Hugh Jackman as Jean
Valjean.
By Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest, Rage Monthly Magazine and Echo Magazine.
1 comment:
I agree that Perks was fantastic!
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