Childhood's End

I caught a screening of this film on the Independent Film Channel three years ago, and recorded it because I had to go to work, so I've had ample opportunity to watch this film and analyze it in more than a cursory manner. Quite simply, this is a great, uncompromising film depicting people in unconventional relationships in an extremely fair and honest fashion.

Childhood's End is structured around the development of two relationships. The first one to develop is between Greg, a whiz kid photographer, and a friend of his mother's, Evelyn, a fortyish, sexually adventurous divorcee. The core of their relationship, which initially appears to be a shallow May-December/Oedipal sexual attraction, develops quickly into a deeper attachment, much to the horror of their family and friends alike. Two of these friends are Rebecca, an anxious teenage loner, and Denise, and outed lesbian. They fall in love, and form a relationship against the background of their troubled family lives. I don't have a fancy, polished way of explaining why it is that this movie is a great one. All I can tell you is that I've never seen anything so non-judgemental, or honest in all my life. These characters are not cardboard creations. Greg is an egomaniacal overgrown teenager shagging his mom's former best friend. This is not done for a laugh, and it isn't very pleasant to watch up close. Rebecca and Denise are in love, and that's just the way it is. The scene where the make love for the first time is the most explicit sex scene ever filmed, but somehow it is the furthest thing from pornography that I've ever seen, too. This film develops in a very unconventional fashion. I was constantly surprised by the frankness of the dialogue, and the direction that the plot took near the end. I'm not doing justice to all the other characters in the film( such as Chloe the model, who ends up as a Vegas showgirl), but there really are way too many to mention in the detail they would deserve. I look forward to the second film from Jeff Lipsky, whenever it may come.

Gone are the days when films were about human beings. Now most of them are either explosive action pieces with 5 cuts per second, Or films that make fun of the human spirit and degrade it. This film is uplifting. Don't believe the idiots who voted this a 1. There is a lesbian sex scene so I'm guessing that they were turned off by that. I'm not but even if you are you have to give this a go. Trust me its worth the price of a rental.

All in all a great work.

9/10

No spoilers here. Im watching it right now, streaming it on Netflix. I have different feelings about the movie because it feels like a mish mosh. The WRITING, I notice, is smart. The writer was evidently attempting to add intellect into the film. Most of the actors are terrible, which is PROBABLY why anyone watching this film would rate it as "awful" or terrible. I noticed that Sam Trammell is in it, from "True blood" and he does full frontal nudity, which is entertaining in of itself and had me laughing out loud. He has a desire to be with the next door older woman who is a friend of his mothers. He fulfills that desire. The sex is not believable and I don't see any kind of passion between them, so I liken their intensity to a hand massage at a massage parlor in Van Nuys. Trammell is baby faced and unbelievably young looking which emits another laugh from me.. and for his fans, this is an interesting movie to watch. His character though, isn't that likable.. he is portrayed by his character as a bright kid but somewhat selfish. I wonder where they got most of these actors who seem to want to drop their clothes at a moments notice (also amusing) and I wonder if any of them have been in porn films. LOLOLOL I watch a lot of movies so I am not very impressed by most of what I see. I am American and American movies tend to be very disappointing to me. Nevertheless I give everything a fair shake.

Worth the watch if you love True Blood. LOL! I don't think that the writer had a good grasp where to go with the story. The writing doesn't flow. Its EXTREMELY disjointed and staccato. Take that for what its worth, if you can understand what I mean by that.