Eighteen

It's nice to see a film from Canada with a Canadian focus. We Yanks tend to be a bit parochial in that if it ain't American, it can't be much good-- after all, we invented movies and hey, where's Hollywood anyway? This little film which gives us several peeks into Canadian middle class which isn't much of a departure from what some American Indie would have made about marginalized people, e.g., street people, hustling gay men, etc. The story line which begins confusedly and pops back and forth from flashbacks to back-story, then fuses the two in a very confounding manner to bring the viewer back to the present and then a quick cut to the future at the end. This is a morality tale of redemption, suffering and quasi-resurrection, melded into a young man's odyssey seeking virtue in an amoral world. The acting is generally weak: Pip the main character is completely unconvincing as an innocent youth wandering lost because of self-loathing and self-betrayal. He comes off as a spoiled brat who loathes anything smacking of responsibility more than he abominates his own self-perceived and self-condemned failings; Paul Anthony neither looks nor acts 18 in this role. His counterpart in the back story, Brandan Fletcher is quite convincing of the 18 year old Jason, caught in the throes of WW1, helping a dying comrade and having to kill or be killed. Indeed, the contrast is notable and highlights Anthony's not too attempts at misplaced and miscounted youth. Carly Pope is charming as the girl-friend albeit her love interest in a young spoiled homeless kid does not come across very well. David Beazley and Clarence Sponagle are fine in their roles of young gay men attempting a relationship and Serge Houde as Pip's hypocritical beast of a father and the ever brilliant Alan Cummings as the gay Priest gives the story the necessary added texture of complexity, duplicity and ambiguity. All in all, a decent film that could have admittedly better but then too, it could have been disastrously worse.

it is not great. it is not perfect. but it is only an independent film who has a lot of courage, special poetry of image and theme.but it has the rare gift to give a coherent touching, precise and useful message about grow up, commitment, friendship and family. and Paul Anthony does an admirable job. a film as an embroidery of stories, each complex, each perfect single as subject of film and smart links between stories. wise portrait of an age more than a character. and subtle science to mix shadows and lights in right manner. a film for reflection who propose fragments of stories who becomes parts of a large circle. in essence, story of metamorphose of angry in peace. as fruit of precious legacy.

Interesting attempt but falls short of being really mesmerizing at it could have been. With many interesting foundational characters and premises it's a shame it couldn't really figure out what it wanted to be or who it wanted to be it's following. There are both gay and Str8 characters, but aside from the Shopkeeper and the grandfather there wasn't much sympathy to be had by me for any of them. I like what I could fantasize them being or how I would like the stories to go but that does little good if it's not realized on screen. The shopkeepers sweet search for plain old love and togetherness was the best food for my thoughts, while the tired cliched str8 stuff has been done a million times. It was mostly like smelling this wonderful cheesecake and yet never quite being able to get a slice...I did like it, but as I said, it was a mish-mash of converging ideas and stories that seemed, as a total film, to be shortchanged on one story to make room for the others, each story having that issue. After all it is just a film, as opposed to a fleshed out 4 hour miniseries where they may could have given enough attention to each aspect to satisfy it's respective audience. I think you can see in many of the reviews that different audiences liked different dishes of this meal. That is always the problem when you aim for too many audiences. You are left loving parts and being bored with others. 3 hour and half long films for each story would have been my choice. 2 I would have watched, and 1 would have passed on. Still, it is a decent film, I just had to play out some parts in my head to MY satisfaction. Movies is a magic that requires imagination sometimes to complete the spell.

I read a viciously hidden remarks on a previous comments stating that this film showed a bunch of gay guys romping around their gayness.

This couldn't be more misleading. "Eighteen" is not a gay film. It has only three gay characters in it and one of them is the victim of prejudice of people like the one who wrote the comments, despite his confession of fairness.

Pip's grandfather was not gay. The tender scene of the soldier and his sergeant is male bonding at the crucial moment of death. But some people gets appalled by a kiss and welcome scene of guts flying out of a man killed by a bomb.

The focus of the film is the straight relationship of Pip and that sweet girl and their facing their social obligation and parenthood.

Ralph Rewes www.r1313.info

EIGHTEEN as written and directed by Richard Bell may have a few too many stories to tell simultaneously for a 102 minute movie to completely succeed, but there is such a fine sense of commitment on the part of all the cast and crew that the viewer ends up wanting the movie to work - and so it does. Yes, aspects could have been finessed if the producers had more money to spend on the final cut, but as a small independent movie from Canada this is a tender, gently humorous, very touching tale about vulnerability and communication and commitment. It works on many levels.

In a very well choreographed opening we are voyeurs at a family dinner where obviously something has gone awry and results in a father and two sons taking off in a car and having an accident in which one of the sons is killed. With an introduction like that the mood is set for the surviving 18-year old Pip son (Paul Anthony - looking far too old for credibility as a teenager) to desert his family and live on the streets. He meets Clark (Clarence Sponagle) a male prostitute who gives Pip food and shelter, Jenny (the very fine Carly Pope) who saves him from a bashing by her associate Derek (Ryan McDonell) and becomes romantically entangled with Pip, and Father Chris (Alan Cumming) in a finely wrought sympathetic role as a priest. It is Pip's 18th birthday and his father (Serge Houde) traces Pip down to give him a present from his deceased grandfather with instructions the gift should be opened on Pip's 18th birthday.

Pip, though drinking too much and full of anger, pawns the tape machine but keeps the tape and begins to listen to the words of his grandfather Jason (voice by Ian McKellen) who recounts his own 18th birthday in WW II in France where he (now the very sensitive actor Brendan Fletcher) has an experience with a wounded medic named Macauley (Mark Hildreth, also superb) and reflects on his one night marriage with a cabaret singer Hannah (Thea Gill of 'Queer as Folk' fame and a fine singer and actress here), only for something to live for during the war: Jason offers succor to Macauley as he dies, with a beautiful scene of redemption for he two men at the end. The parallels of Pip and grandfather Jason interplay every time Pip listens to the tape and lead Pip to ultimately alter his view of life and love. Subplots include Clark's isolated existence as a hustler being altered by Jeff (David Beazely - in a surprisingly fine film debut) who simply wants to be loved; by an unexpected pregnancy between Jenny and Pip; by the trust Father Chris instills in both Pip and Clark in a good shepherd's manner: and by a flashback to the car accident where Pip could have saved his brother Daniel (Paul Dzenkiw) from an abusive act at the hands of his father, just before the accident, but failed to do so, opening his deep guilt and resultant misplaced anger, mirrored by his grandfather's taped experiences. Each of these subplots pulls together at the end, creating a sense of closure for each of the people involved.

There are aspects of this film that make it seem like a big budget production: the musical score by Bramwell Tovey is performed by the Vancouver Symphony members, the cinematography by Kevin Van Niekerk is aptly atmospheric, and the general quality of acting by this Canadian cast is very fine. Though Paul Anthony handles his role well, casting a very young teenager in the pivotal main role would have made the story work much better, and Richard Bell, with only one other film 'Two Brothers' on his resume, gives promise of a young talent to watch. Despite the shortcomings, EIGHTEEN is a worthwhile film and deserves attention. Grady Harp