iskander28

I attended a screening in SF, but found myself unable to speak while the director and two stars were standing before me. So now that I've found my voice again, here goes: While he falls short of achieving his goals, I believe it is because he has set the bar too high for himself. It seems he wanted to do so much in this film, that it was impossible for him to say everything that he wanted to. I am sure that making a film about gay men can be difficult. We want the love story of "Beautiful Thing", the comedy of "Trick", the hunky cast of "Broken Hearts Club", and the tear-jerker sadness of "It's My Party". Mr. Swain tries to do, be, create all of these things in one package. He came respectably close to doing it.

I enjoyed the film, it felt contrived in places, which may have had as much to do with the editing as it does with the fact that this is Mr. Swain's first film. Given time, his voice and vision will mature, and I can't wait to see what happens as it does.

See this film, we need more like it.

This film made me violently uncomfortable. In that I am in agreement with nearly every other review of this film on imdb.

I was not uncomfortable though with what I saw. I was uncomfortable with what I felt. I left the theatre asking myself why I was so shaken.

Any film can make you feel. It's in the nature of film to make you feel - sympathy for a character, afraid for a character, afraid of a character...

This film forced me not only to feel, but also to confront why I was feeling sympathy, fear, discomfort...

I left the theater questioning the nature of addiction, the nature of the media in the lives of everyday people, the fragile way that we relate to other people, and the difference between the dirty addiction of street drugs and the clean addiction that has swept our country - the use of drugs with psychotropic side-effects prescribed by doctors with no psychological background.

Please do not be absurd and say that every 15 year old child should see this film. It is like saying that every mother with an infant should see 'A Cry in the Dark' so that their baby does not get eaten by dingoes.

The director daringly use of several techniques (e.g. the much derided split screen) is effective and well utilized in the film and along with excellent performances by the actors and an utterly masterful use of music make this the most remarkable film of 2000.