Elliot Loves

Nothing profound, original or surprising here ...but still a truly enjoyable film: simple and sweet.

I never really leave reviews but I definitely wanted to for this one. I'm not a film expert so bare with me but I do watch plenty of queer films. It takes a lot to weed out the bad gay movies, but this one was definitely one of the best.

The main character, Elliot, is young and naive but he is lovely. The movie switches from him as a child to him trying to find love as a young adult.

A lot of movies don't give enough emotion to the characters so you never truly get to know or connect with them. This movie does exactly that tho. You get to know the characters and not just Elliot. It has a lot of depth. This movie is a combination of funny, happy, and sad. The entire movie I was either laughing or crying. I don't normally feel all those emotions while watching movies but this one was different.

I'm also always scared that when I watch a gay movie it will have a sad ending but I felt very content with the end of this movie. I think the sad parts were very necessary and make it all the more better. By the end of the movie I think Elliot had grown a bit as a person which is what he really needed.

I will most definitely watch this movie again. Its amazing and I definitely recommend.

Elliot is a young love-starved 21 yo in search of a real relationship. He's a goofy, energetic, likeable Romantic (with a capital R) with a bad history of hookups and failed relationships; paralleling that of his mother's disastrous love life. Elena Goode deserves special mention as his mother who is the real emotional core of the film. She's amazing, charming and mesmerizing as a young single mother trying to hold on to her youth and dreams yet constantly finding the wrong boyfriend. And poor Elliot has to put up with that. There's even a montage of Elliot reuniting wih a failed hookup side by side with his mother's backstory of dating a BMOC and getting dumped with a pregnant Elliot in spire of her mother's warnings. Both Goode and the actor playing Elliot's emoting during this scene are the reason to watch this movie. The director makes some really weird choices such as having young Elliot bare-bottomed on the toilet telling his story as if it were an interview and there are random animated scenes probably meant to hide the low budget. The other actors are flaky and campy but this IS a comedy first, drama second so expect Elliot not to end up the same as his mother and have the 'heppy ever after' ending one can expect. There a lot of terrible films out there but happily this is not one of them though it could be better. Let Elliot and his family charm their way into your hearts and maybe you'll see yourself in them. Look for a young pre-Queer Eye Antoni Porowski as one of Ma's lovers.

Elliot is real, fun-loving, passionate, trusting, intelligent, loyal and tough. A young man who will do what it takes to find a healthy, loving relationship with another man. He's looking for a boyfriend and a mate. Life is hard and sometimes even quite brutal. But every time you knock Elliot down, he gets back up again! He's not capable of giving up. He loves life too much!

Elliot Loves is about relationships. There is zero camp in this film. The sex scenes are tastefully done. There is very little stereotyping. Homophobia and prejudice against LGBTQ people within and outside the Hispanic community is not addressed at all, which I see as a sign of progress. The Gay community in 2013 is finally free to exam love, commitment and the difficult process of finding a mate as heterosexuals have been doing since the birth of filmmaking in the early 1900's!

Both actors who play Elliot, one as a child, and the other as an adult do a magnificent job. They put their hearts and souls into their respective performances and it shows. I felt like I got to know them, that's how good the character development is!

Why can't Hollywood make more beautiful gay films like Elliot Loves? The good news is that HBO has bough this film and now it will be seen by millions of people around the world on cable TV! That's huge for a gay friendly film! To quote Bob Dylan: Times They are a-Changin!

See my other two favorite LGBTQ films: "Latter Days" and "Common Ground," staring Ed Asner.

I loved this indie film about a gay Dominican kid growing up in Queens New York. This film treads lightly and with humor through some subject matter that could have easily been disturbing and serious. I love the humor, the insider views to Dominican family dynamics that are so rare in film, and the performance by the main character Elliot. This film has that essential indie feeling where the story is more important than the production value and that ultimately leads to something that feels much more authentic than a Hollywood film.