Aleksandr's Price

As my review title suggests, this is a very real and emotional repreentation of what it's really like in the world of escorting. There are a lot of strange people out there who use and abuse escorts or 'sex workers' as we now more affectionately refer to them. People forget they are real human beings with real feelings. Pau Maso as Actor, Writer, Director and Editor really hammers home the reality of this largely hidden world. A low budget film with a real meaningful punch. I will be watching this again for sure. Given also the film was shot using equipment relative to a low budget feature, it really does look great on screen. I watched this on my large cinema scren at home and was very impressed.

Aleksandr was dealt a bad deal in life. He lost the only family he had and he'd undocumented. Two things that make a bad combo. Yes, lonely undocumented people in a city can fall into things they don't want.

Aleksandr is trying to figure out who he is and what he wants. He hooks up with a guy, tells him it's his first time, and the assumption is that he's a prostitute. How does that make sense? Another guy hands him money after being together and says he's so good that he must be a professional and throws money at him. There are plenty of people who are good at it who have never been paid for it. It's just such a weird thing.

Aleksandr also has a penchant for completely ruining relationships but they always come back and want to be his friend. They say he's a nice guy but his actions don't convey it.

Wherever he goes people seem to know he's a rent boy even when he looks sullen and doesn't so much as glance their way.

This could have been a decent movie but it wasn't. There are much better movies of a similar vein. Skip this one.

Poor script, poor cinematography, poor direction, poor acting (though not sure if it's the actor's fault. Just a titlilating tale of one dimensional characters.

Terrible, awful movie starring Pau Masó as Aleksandr, a character I couldn't care less for. Apparently, I was supposed to feel sorry for, but I soon didn't. Poor, poor Aleksandr, who had all these terrible things happen to him, abandonment, dead mother, and more. But any sympathy I had for him was soon lost. I got so tired of that pathetic expression on his face through the entire movie I wanted to scream!

Yeah, yeah, prostitution is bad, and it leads to all sex-workers wanting to kill themselves. Whatever. Except I think Dan Savage for one would disagree.

Poor rambling script. Poor acting. Annoying "hero" who cried and threw up so many times I wanted to scream. Mediocre acting. I don't even think the main actor's accent was real. Poor filming. Poor sound. Only Josh Berresford as Keith (the client with a heart of silver, if not gold) was really any good and even his part was cliché—he had to struggle to get anything decent out of the part he was given. The therapist was decent but we don't even know how our guy got there. Keith Dougherty was absolutely terrible—and his part worse as he made no sense. Was he a nice guy or a jerk? Who knows? Did even the writer?

The twist ending was ridiculous. And the sudden turn around after that in about two minutes totally unbelievable.

I also highly suspect the couple good reviews for this movie. I'm not saying they're fake, but I wouldn't be surprised. They praised a bad film so highly, I can't help but be suspect. Brilliant? Not in any way. What a total waste of my time! I'm downright angry. And while one reviewer's thought that he wished the protagonist would just kill himself seems harsh? Well.... I sure stopped caring about the "hero." So hmmmmm.....

One unkind reviewer infers that friends etc are putting in the high ratings. They do not seem especially high to me and I give it a 6 because I believe Pao Maso gave an uneven, but in many ways a convincing interpretation of a lost Russian in America. At times I even thought he was filming for Russia as the depiction of gay men in this film showed up a lot of ' Western Decadence '. It could even be shown as a dreadful warning in Russia (it would be laughed off the screen in Moscow and St. Petersburg) but the provincial cities would lap it up. The message to me seemed, do not go West unless you want to experience rape, incest, being forced into female clothes and as Thelma Ritter said, immortally in ' All About Eve ', " Everything but bloodhounds at her rear end ". In fact as one disastrous encounter piled on another I could not help think that this was a kind of Lana Turner film from the 1950's. And at the end I asked myself, did the main character make all the wrong choices or was it dear old Russian fate!!! The shock ending was unbelievable, but then as some wit said, so is life. I just did not buy it, some may. And as for the general acting abilities of the other actors, well they could have all done better. So did I like the film at all ? Yes, because I truly believe Mr. Maso could make a truly good film one day. This had a certain pace and I was not bored. The sex scenes, given the unpleasantness of some of them were not realistic enough given the subject matter ( please Mr. Maso watch the French masterpiece ' Sauvage ' ) and there was a lot of fake clutching at sheets and crazy camera movements. Too many fig leaves do not make a savage film, and this set itself up to be one and half succeeded.