It (very) slowly dawned on me as I watched this that I had seen it before -and perhaps the fact that it took me some time to realize this was affair reflection on the initial impact the film had – which was somewhat underwhelming.
The first 25-30 minutes were very dreary; it was dully shot, the performances were uninvolved and expression in the dialogue was markedly lacking. There were too many overlong and dully shot surfing sequences too. We get it; he’s a surfer. Now move on. The dialogue itself was also labored and did not ‘flow’. This was all compounded by the dreadful, obtrusive music – the worst sort of limp, whiny-voiced songs, self-pitying in tone and sentiment, and with a single instrument accompanying in a dully repetitive manner.
However, the first proper scene with a strongly sexual element was very much better. There seemed to be real feeling communicated, by both the actors and the way it was film – yes, a bit clichéd soft-focus visually but it showed a degree of creativity and the close-ups were intimately involving that up until now had been very much lacking.
The central character, in a way, I felt, was the 5-year old Cody, nephew of one of the two main adult characters, his uncle Zach and brother to Cody’s feckless mother. His burgeoning relationship with Shaun was really touchingly shown, thanks in no small measure to the finely naturalistic performance of the young actor.
The Zach and Shaun relationship, the emotional heart of the film was shown at its best in the idyllic weekend they spent together where the intimacy was gentle and real – although the music remained dire, as it did for the whole film. Another good scene was the effectively awkward scene between Gabe (older brother of) and Shaun in the immediate aftermath of their [post-weekend break-up.
Towards the end of the film, the plotting seemed to be a little rushed – we were suddenly at CalArts with Zach with no sense or indication of when or how he got there – unless I missed something and this was a flashback to the past…The putative girlfriend/beard for Zach, Tori was, finally, a well-drawn one with rather more depth and feeling than one might have expected from her role at the start. And in the latter part of the film as a whole, the quality of dialogue and performance got markedly better from the labored start where it was not so much understated as flat.
The conclusion, particularly given when it was made, was really quite radical – the boy remained with his uncle and partner – but the final shots of them all gamboling on the beach were rather trite – and where did the cute dog come from?
Still, better than it looked to be at the start, thankfully.