Three Months

Content

Premise: A boy finds out that his one night stand is HIV positive, and his test result comes out in three months. 'Three months' documents his daily life and emotional state of those three months. When I read the plot summary, my first thought was 'is this gonna be another tear-jerker soap opera?'. It's my personal analysis, and it may be wrong; however, LGBQ awareness movies tend to be emotional, melancholy, and grey. 'Three months' does not scream the message, but it's still strong and powerful. The movie is not preachy about HIV awareness or does not describe Caleb as a sad misunderstood teenager.

Form

This is all possible because of how director Frieder chooses to tell the story in a composed way. There are not many scenes showing emotions of characters too directly. The lines are witty and short, and they do not overdo it. Writers really keep it simple but genuine and honest. It hits harder after the movie than during the movie. Emotions linger and resonate like afterglow. Photography, colors, and editing are very modern and young. Summery pictures and pastel colors allude to Florida and youth. Sivan's acting is something. He's so sincere that Caleb feels like a real person. I'm not sure he's a skilled actor, but I could tell that Sivan is telling his story in the movie.

I like the attitude and people living in a non discriminated environment. Problems not change how we live but attitude does. I love the spirit of this movie and we are all equal, treasure the time when you are young.

I didn't expect much going into this movie but I guess I didn't realise the brilliance right away. Seriously, I did not know it was going to be such a heavy storyline! The conflict, the characters, the dialogue- you can really tell there was a lot of effort put into it. And Troye Sivan really puts the pro in protagonist. I was so amazed by the second half because of how light it started off. Amazing writing and perfect actors. I wish this movie was more popular- it is the most beautiful, powerful, YA film I've seen in a long time. I hope it reaches today's youth. A magical, lovely movie, overall.

It's bugged me a little when we have fine teen films like Never Rarely Sometimes Always, or even Plan B, whose delicately deals with their serious theme without falling into too archetypical, and then we have Three Months.

I know it's an MTV film, hence being light and glittery has to be in its repertoire. However, the crammed of the late 2000's/early 2010's teen films clichés into the narrative doesn't necessarily make it more than just average at best.

Overall, quite a pleasant movie and refreshing for the subject matter it covers, to a fault almost. It's nice to see a movie about HIV that isn't all doom and gloom - at the same time, the film feels weirdly low-stakes as it tends to undercut any narrative tension by always trying to downplay the seriousness. The film's central theme - waiting - isn't a very dynamic action, and so the movie just kind of plods along, from scene to scene. Some supporting characters feel underdeveloped, and so some of the dramatic moments later in the film feel unearned. As a comedy, however, it works well - no particularly outrageous scenes, just a steady stream of chuckles. The central love story is lovely, with some nice chemistry between Caleb and Estha.

Troye Sivan shines in the comedic moments of the film and seems very comfortable on screen, although he struggles just a bit with some of the story's more serious scenes. He really makes the character his own - it helps that he's pretty. All supporting performances are serviceable, Brianna Tju and Viveik Kalra play their roles well. A delightful debut by writer/director Jared Frieder!

I recommend watching it - it's nice, simple, touching, amusing, heartfelt, and we get so few queer films like it.