Una casa alla fine del mondo

What a stunning surprise! A family saga without familiar places or I should say that there are all familiar places but they feel completely new. I'm not one who likes to give away plot points so I won't I just want to say that I loved the loving involved in the unfolding of this realistic fairy tale. Personally, I've been questioning the apparent success of Colin Farrell. In very short years he worked with everybody from Stone to Spielberg, co starred with Pacino, Cruise and Willis but other than a winning pout and a clear willingness to take risks, his appeal eluded me - until last night that is. "A Home At The End Of The World" made me fall in love with him, with his power with his utter fearlessness. He creates a character with his heart in his sleeve and an innocence that it's compelling, aggressively on your face. Sweet and tough, wise and naive. Robin Wright Penn is also a standout. Her truth, unusual as it is, is unmistakable. Sissi Spaceck's suburban mom is an extraordinary creation. Subversive without meaning to, lovingly subversive, that's what she is. The opening with a startling Ryan Donowho grabs you by your heart and your throat and doesn't let you go. Wondering why this film didn't become an instant classic I arrived to the uncomfortable conclusion that it has to do with the casting of Colin's life long friend, Dallas Roberts, a good actor but not charismatic enough to give us a compelling pairing. I agree that he should be awkward and different but there is an element of petulance and physicality who didn't allow me to care for him as much as I wanted, as much as I needed. Sorry I had to mention that. But the experience that this little big film provides is unforgettable and the revelation of Colin Farrell mystique as an actor is nothing short of breathtaking.

I'm not sure if I just saw the same movie as some of the other reviewers on here. I would include this film as one of the best of 2004 (so far) along with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden State, Spartan, and Kill Bill Vol 2. Colin Farrell's character, Bobby Morrow is one of the most fascinating people I've seen in the movies for some time. I hope his performance (and this film) are given the recognition they deserve. The rest of the performances are excellent as well. The screenplay and the direction are also very good, too. The story isn't something that we haven't seen on film before, but the characters and the way the film unfolds isn't your standard fare. Don't listen to the detractors, see this film.

"Remember your very best friend in high school, the one who knew… and kept… all your secrets? Bobby and Jonathan, who shared that kind of friendship, meet again as adults in New York. Sparked by their relationship with free-spirited Clare, they forge a loving unit that redefines 'family'. Colin Farrell, Robin Wright Penn, Sissy Spacek and Dallas Roberts star in this lyrical film that's both a celebration of commitment and a music - and memory-driven portrait of America in the '70s and '80s. Adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham from his own novel, 'A Home at the End of the World' strikes close to home as an adventure as big as life itself: risky, surprising, sexually charged and real," according to sleeve scribers...

That description, while not entirely inaccurate, hints at how "A Home at the End of the World" fails to achieve its full potential. The film isn't altogether a "memory-driven portrait" of family and music over the decades covered; indeed, it is a portrait of an unconventional family unit, but that should have remained secondary. At heart, this is a love (the kind including a sexual attraction) story between the Bobby and Jonathan characters, possibly deemphasized to make it more palatable. The focus unravels, especially after Mr. Farrell's adult Bobby take over the action. The film draws its fault line by losing touch with the central relationship, and Farrell's characterization goes off course. Freed-from-the-wig Colin Farrell and Dallas Roberts could have recorded a hit version of "Look Out, Cleveland" with The Band backing...

The casting is excellent, with Erik Smith and Harris Allan especially winning as the teenage Bobby and Jonathan; they blend perfectly with the grown-up Farrell and Mr. Roberts. Note that criticisms of Farrell in the lead role are of characterization, not acting. Smith's Bobby was played as a self-assured and sexual adventurous young man, but Farrell's Bobby is suddenly an asexual puppy dog; something is missing. We begin with an uncommonly artistic story, from Mr. Cunningham's novel. Cunningham worked on the film; a double edged sword, for it reveals not only tantalizing bits of his artistic vision, but also invites criticism regarding its execution. The fine original story is still evident on film, and some cinematic moments give the material emotional strength...

A highlight occurs when Smith and Allan become "brothers" by exchanging jackets; most importantly, the jacket worn by Bobby belonged to his brother, and he symbolically replaces Carlton (a sexually-charged Ryan Donowho) with Jonathan. This is a circular story. Note we begin with "Bobby" walking in on his brother having sex with a young woman (on top); this scene is recalled when he walks in on his replacement brother, again with a woman (on top). In both instances, Bobby winds up in bed with brother. There is no evidence of incest, but the opening brother/brother relationship appears extremely intimate, as does the later relationship between Bobby and replacement "mother" Alice (an easily potted Sissy Spacek). This story is about replacing lost love. We end with a full circle...

******* A Home at the End of the World (6/9/04) Michael Mayer ~ Colin Farrell, Dallas Roberts, Robin Wright, Sissy Spacek

Clare loves Jonathan, who loves Bobby who..., well, loves everybody. Bobby is either straight or homosexual or bisexual or asexual, depending on where you are in the movie. A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a relationship movie wherein everything hinges on the relationships, but those relationships remain strangely ill-defined.

Achingly sincere, A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD strives for an easygoing reality, not fully appreciating that easygoing can also mean meandering. To its credit we are never sure where the film is going to take us, but to its detriment, the film doesn't seem to know either. The film relies on JULES AND JIM math -- one guy plus one guy divided by one girl equals melodrama -- as a way of exploring the changing social landscape of America from the laid back sex-drugs-and-rock'n'roll sixties to the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It covers a lot of ground, yet doesn't seem to really go anywhere.

The best part of the film is the beginning, before most of the main stars even make an appearance. Set in Cleveland, first in 1967 and then in 1974, the film has some gentle fun looking at suburban attempts at being mod and trendy, while romanticizing drug use and rock music. These are little Bobby Morrow's formative years, where one by one he tragically looses members of his family, leaving him an orphan by age 14. He befriends nerdy Jonathan Glover in high school and ultimately becomes part of the Glover family, whom he seduces with his genuine charm, gentle optimism and an apparently always ready supply of marijuana. It is also where Bobby and Jonathan begin exploring their sexuality. Even with it's discomforting approval of casual drug use, this is where the film is most successful, in the way it deals in an honest and intelligent way with blossoming sexuality and the awkwardness of being a gay teenager.

The film really deals with original ideas in these early stages, but that is just meant to be a foreshadowing of the main storyline, which, unfortunately tends to be rather trite and clichéd.

The bulk of the story takes place in 1984 and thereafter, as the adult Bobby (Colin Farrell) heads to New York to live with Jonathan (Dallas Roberts), who is now more or less openly gay. Jonathan is living with Clare (Robin Wright Penn), a gay guy's gal pal (i.e., fag hag) who is your standard New York City kook, complete with punkish magenta hair, crazy clothes and unconventional ideas that don't seem all that unconventional anymore. Clare loves Jonathan and wants to have his child, but she seduces and becomes pregnant by Bobby, who we suddenly are expected to believe isn't gay at all. The three continue to live together as something more than roommates, but something less than a marriage. And the film sorta-kinda explores the nature of this three-way union.

As a result we get three, or at least two intriguing characters who get lost in a story bereft of a dramatic point. And a perfectly good gay love story becomes an unconvincing a love triangle, where each member ends up playing odd-person-out at some point.

The most troublesome part of the story is that the character of Clare even exists. Clare's main function is to keep Jonathan and Bobby apart as lovers, even as her pregnancy is a gimmick designed to keep them together as family. And though the film is pro-gay on the surface, there is the suggestion that Clare has somehow cured Bobby's homosexuality and the added insinuation that Clare and Jonathan could both find true love if only he didn't have that darn quirk of wanting to sleep with guys. This is a gay love story which wants to avoid being a gay love story. Also, Robin Wright Penn is just not an interesting enough actress to bring any pizzazz to the stereotypical role of a bohemian kook and offers little reason to see why both Bobby and Jonathan are devoted to her. The character itself is a nuisance. Clare exists as a beard, a plot contrivance designed to turn a gay love story into a straight love story.

The main character, however, is Bobby and Farrell does a fine job playing him as a repressed man-child. There is no trace of the bravado that has made up Farrell's on-screen and off-screen reputation, only a gentle sweetness. Unfortunately, this causes an inconsistency in character. As played at age 7 by Andrew Chalmers and at 14 by Erik Smith, Bobby is an open, articulate, engaging free spirit. When Farrell picks up the character at age 24, Bobby has suddenly become repressed, shy and child-like. Even realizing the various hardships that marked Bobby's early life, his sudden display of emotional retardation is jarringly illogical. And though Farrell is good, it is the excellent performance of Smith as the teenaged Bobby that really defines the character.

The best thing about HOME is Dallas Roberts. As the adult Jonathan, he makes the character seem typically gay, without seeming to be stereotypically gay. His Jonathan views Bobby with love and lust as a friend, and with resentment and distrust as an ersatz favored sibling. Roberts embodies the conflicted nature of Jonathan better than Michael Cunningham's screenplay would suggest possible. Also, Sissy Spacek has some fine moments as Jonathan's mother. She is particularly effective in a scene where Mrs. Glover has just discover Jonathan and Bobby in a compromising position. The ensuing scene finds her distraught, not because she realizes that Jonathan is gay, but that know she must accept as fact what she had already suspected. It is poignant moment.

Had A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD been made in 1967 or 1974 or even 1984, it might have had an impact. Now, so much of it is, if not cliché, at least ordinary: the supersensitive gay man in love with a straight man; the flower child/mother hen/earth mother with a penchant for gay men, the alternative family unit, the odds and ends bits of feminist dissatisfaction and even the climatic special guest appearance by AIDS. The story's one original element is the naive (yet controlling), gay (yet straight), passive (yet dominating), eager to please (yet vaguely self-centered) Bobby, but the film shies away from either exploring or challenging the character. Indeed, the filmmakers even made a point of editing out a shot of Farrell's full frontal nudity; likewise they edited out his sexuality which is the linchpin of all the relationships. They don't want to reveal too much of the character and in the end they reveal too little.

Michael's Cunningham's book is so moving I was afraid to be deeply disappointed by the movie adaptation. Although 90 min is barely enough to narrate the story in its emotional complexity, the movie is very faithful to the book, probably because the screenplay is from Cunningham himself. The acting is excellent, and the soundtrack featuring Laura Nyro is beautiful, and if some of the book's interest is lost in translation, it still makes a pretty good movie. I find some detractors' arguments pretty amazing, as if all they'd watched was the trailer. To suggest that after Jules & Jim any movie containing a threesome is worthless, that any movie taking place in the 70s-80s is obsolete, that there was too much or not enough sex scenes, or that the AIDS theme is not developed enough, is plain ludicrous. This is not a movie about an era, about homosexuality, or about the AIDS epidemics. This is about (re)creating a place out of time and geography, where the world makes sense (again). A home, in other words. This is about loving another being (or two, since one is never complete, never enough) irrespective of family links, gender, and the established social codes. The characters are struggling to escape the rules to enjoy the "big noisy world around" and find a natural place in it. They are the opposite of stereotypical characters, at least once they are fully revealed to themselves. As for the end, it is not "unconclusive", it is what is called an open ending, and probably in this case the perfect ending, which means the only possible one. My advice: watch it, and read the novel too.