Kept Boy

I think we've all seen the classic love triangle poster on books and movies a million times, and when the material is gay, it's usually pretty dire.

Kept Boy was a pleasant surprise. First thing you key to is that the acting standard is uniformly high, and the production standards are good. The plot is a trifle melodramatic but that's the nature of the beast. The reviews of Robert Rodi's 1996 book suggest it was a written as a comedy of manners, but the film takes a less light-hearted reading than the rom-com poster implies.

Overall, I'm both intrigued enough by the source material to seek out the book, and found the film to be rewarding enough to deserve future re-watching. A keeper.

"Kept Boy" was just "okay" and nothing about it was particularly memorable. I watched it only a couple nights ago and I've already forgotten most of the details. This is rare for me because I'm known for having an excellent memory. I was going to re-watch it so I could write a more concise review, but then I realized that forgetting most of it was sort of the point of my review.

This movie was well cast and the actors in the primary roles all performed well. I particularly liked Jon Paul Phillips in the title role. He has a natural "hurt animal" vibe and he delivered a believable performance as a vacuous, adrift boy toy a few years past his "sell by date" (literally stated in the movie). This relationship dynamic has a lot of depth and story potential that was not thoroughly explored. Major missed opportunity.

The storyline suffers by having too many threads going in different directions, so everything is treated only superficially. Scattered, not focused. There are too many characters, various unnecessary scenes pursuing minor plot points. It would have been more impactful and memorable to pare it down to a strong core story and developing that and the characters in more depth.

...for the proposing questions. Simple, real, precise. For the nice performances. For the atmosphere. Not great but nice. For a form of definition for the meaning of life. For the heigh of different ages. For the map of vulnerabilities. And for sketches of artificial universes and theirs borders. Nothing original. But useful for the traces of questions and for the reasonable manner to propose them.

Dennis lives with his sugar day that is real life TV type Farleigh who has more money than sense and likes to have his significant other not too far away. Dennis has grown used to the easy life and the trimmings of success but with his main actual achievement being 'looking smashing in athletic wear' as John Grant might say. Thing is time and tide wait for no man and after a life of lazy margheritas it is not going to be too long before age starts to show.

Then enter Jasper, he's hunky, he's sultry, he's Mexican and he is the new pool guy. But not for long – soon Farleigh has more than his interest piqued and all of a sudden Dennis has competition – big time.

Now this is one of those stories that plays the coincidence card a tad too many time but as its done so well you sort of forgive it. The actors are all really good especially Jon Paul Phillips as Dennis who really ought to get more gigs. The production is done well too and despite its indie background it comes across as a confident and grown up piece of film making – this is not one for those who want to be mired in bedroom action but is more character based and hence is one I can recommend to all fans of gay themed cinema

The movie starts with a relationship that already has problems, has little character development and growth and has an ending that doesn't feel authentic or natural to the story but abrupt and a bit forced. It was not a bad movie just not enough to it for me to feel the need to ever watch it again. It truly felt like a couple episodes mid-season if a tv show. I felt that I missed some of the back story as to who the characters were and the what and why if their life position to be invested in their actions, it then ends rather abruptly right when I felt the underlying who and why of the characters were coming out and tensions were building and I was truly getting into it all. Worst of all it is one of those endings where it feels almost like the writers gave up and wrote a cheap ending they thought people would want.