Blue Citrus Hearts

One can't watch this film without the gut feeling that it's a story the writer had to tell. Absent any melodramatic flourishes and self-consciously arty touches or sub-plots, it tells a familiar story with such honesty and immediacy that it's as if you are living among Sam, Julien, their families, and friends. Through the poetry of their inarticulateness and the lack of any artifice both Sam and Julian are iconic: Sam, the popular high school kid who only appears to fit in with his crowd and Julian, the outsider who comes along to light up his life. The beauty of this film is its artistic economy. Unlike the long and embellished Hollywood novel, this is a poem in which every spare word and action communicates much more than pages of explanatory chat.

Blue Citrus Hearts was one of those films you buy out of curiosity because Amazon associates it with a lot of the films that you like and enjoy. I'm a huge indie fan and this sounded sweet and had some positive critical review behind it, so I took the chance. I can't say that I'm upset that I saw it, but honestly it hasn't really changed me in any way as good cinema ought to.

First, the good: Paul Foster as Julien is wonderful. He's charming, interesting, beautiful, and lights up every scene that he's in. I would be very excited to see him in something that displayed his talents better. Lee Ann Roberts as Sam's mother and Helen Bowman as Sam's grandmother were both very good and made the most of their few moments on the screen. I have nothing against the "two boys fall in love and it's tough" script; it's pretty much what one expects from a low-budget indie. It's a very rough effort that tries hard but the writer clearly needs more life experience to really grab hold of an issue and do something revelatory with it.

And then, the bad: The camera-work is pretty much unforgivable. I completely understand that it's a budgetless indie, but the cinematography in BCH is a step below what you see people doing with their cell phones and posting on YouTube these days. The shaking, the awkward angles, and the crappy lighting all made the film very difficult to watch. If there's something worse than what they did with the camera, then it's the audio mix. The ambient sound made parts of the film un-hearable and some elements were so loud that you just wanted to press 'stop.' I have probably never encountered a movie ever that I so wanted to stop watching on account of the audio. The soundtrack was horrific; it sounded like they went down to skid row and had all the drugged-out buskers sing into a microphone whatever they could make up at that moment and decided to call that the movie's musical score. Alex Booth as Arielle and Suzie Cyanide as the local tranny were grating and terrible. Cyanide in particular spent chunks of his time staring right at the camera as if reading his few lines off a cue card - it was very uncomfortable to watch.

But the real problem here is a complete lack of direction. Several times through the film, the actors are just kind of sitting there looking at people behind the 4th wall spitting out dialogue that they seem to be improvising as they go. They don't understand what's supposed to be happening at that moment in time, they're not telling us any part of a story, and that is entirely the fault of the Director. If someone had effectively been able to get the actors to understand what they were supposed to be doing and feeling throughout the script, this movie would have been much improved.

I don't know what to say about the star, Joshua Peter Laurenzi. He's not a good actor, but he's not unwatchable. Again, it seems the Director just told him, "hey, you're full of angst and unhappy" and then started filming him as he did whatever he wanted to do.

All the badness aside though, there's something endearing about watching such rawness. We were all teenagers and a lot of the issues are familiar. The film just tries way to hard to be the most indie indie-film ever when it would have done much better to actually create something less painful to look at with some sense that the characters themselves believed that they were not just actors. If this were made by junior high school students (and make no mistake, it looks as though it was), then I'd say "good job, kids." As an effort by adults; however, it just didn't win me over despite the charming Paul Foster and some not-terrible motivating ideas. If it's showing on cable some time, see it. For heaven's sake, don't spend money on it though.

This Movie brought with it an experience and surprise I was not expecting when first sitting down to watch it, the title itself certainly gave no clue as to what was about to be experienced (at least by this viewer), just another yawn, gay themed, movie.

W H O A - I have no idea now what it was I was expecting, but in no way was I expecting to view a piece of work which was to affect me with such an intensity of emotion as did "Blue Citrus Hearts' As mentioned in a couple of other comments, the use of style (Home Movie) and of non-Hollywood actors alone made this a unique viewing experience. As we progressed through the movie I became so involved with the realities of the characters, it was almost voyeuristic.

This is the only movie I have ever seen which so closely portrays, almost exactly, the anguish, despair and emotional turmoil that I went through as a young teenage male growing up in the 60's in a small town (500 people) in Eastern Canada with no idea there were any others in the entire world who shared the terrible secret that was mine, not having any clue whatever that it was, in fact, totally normal.

In my mind I was a terrible and sick person to have the thoughts I had, of wanting to get to know my male friends in the way I wanted, to dream of having the gorgeous boy down the street actually love me..........

No one in those days, to my knowledge, suspected "my horrible secret", so I was never subjected to the bullying and taunting that others have gone through. Looking back my Mother & Father, deprived of any knowledge of what was "wrong" with me, were as supportive as they could through this time frame, (Mother's always know), but The loneliness, isolation and anguish I went through.....

Other Boys & Girls could share their thoughts and feeling about their attractions, dreams and wishes between themselves, with parents, siblings, I could not, I could barely come to terms with those things in me, myself... I had not one soul in whom I could confide to whom I could turn to ask advice.........

I was so enthralled throughout this move with how this so closely resembled that time for me, that the ending sneaked up on me. I was totally unprepared for the intensity of emotion that swept over me as those two boys ..... that something was about to happen to me.... and I began to sob like I have not done since I was 13 to 18, so many lonely days, evenings, nights ago when I was growing up, a young "HOMO" in a small town.

I would dearly love to be able to personally thank and congratulate all those who had a hand in making this marvelous experience possible. They deserve a mountain of credit and wish each and every one success as they move forward with their own lives.

Love being hit this hard in the emotional basket :_)

This theme is a passionate one for me having gone through this in my life. I applaud the writers directors and cast for this amazing film. I truly was moved deeply. I cried during the last scene. So powerful. At times the acting was so realistic it seemed more like a documentary or reality TV show. I felt in every moment the intensity of Sam's hatred for his dad and for his mom's co dependency. I so know how it is to have a mask girlfriend who wants to be loved so desperately. This movie can be so inspiring for other gay and lesbian youth who feel so weak to empower then to be authentic in their lives. How amazing is it to think you walk alone and then find that in truth you have someone who loves you. That part was the most amazing to me.

I rented this movie yesterday at Blockbuster's thinking that it would be something special to see. Boy, was I ever disappointed! The only thing good about this movie was the basic story line--which unfortunately was destroyed by a terribly script, extremely poor acting, and an unbearable sound tract. It appeared that someone working on the film knew the script and acting were so bad that they were trying to drown it out with background noise and music. The acting was very amateurish--and the very long bit at the end telling that 'this is for boys who love boys--this is for girls who love girls, etc., etc' stank. If this was the winning film at the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Film festival, I'd certainly hate to see the losers.