B24

If this film is about rugby, it lacks substance in spite of much attention to the game. If it's about infidelity, it does portray a chilly season of the year. That sort of sums it up. But the production values are quite high for a low-budget film. And the acting far exceeds a script that hovers alternately somewhere between incoherence and implausibility. Infidelity as a theme should probably not command heavy attention within a Christmas tale of sin and forgiveness. Avarice and other human transgressions yes, but not infidelity. The main character seems just confused, however, and all that's left is a litter of damaged egos.

One gets the impression about half way in that this film would make an interesting novel. It fails, however, as a motion picture. The beginning scenes portend a focus on two brothers that merges abruptly into a diffuse family situation with everyone deeply involved in his or her own complicated personality. This is the stuff of a really good read on the beach or cruise ship, not an engaging visual or lively movie or stage play. The theme of death hangs over every character's place in the narrative, like a recurrent suffocating blanket or some other senselessly futile motif. An appearance at one point of a Ouija board lacks the comic response it merits, and is presented seriously. Still, there is merit in some of the performances, and visuals are generally good.

Technically interesting film. That alone merits a rating of more than average in an age of mediocrity that uses hand-held cameras, poorly lit scenes, and mumbled scripts. As to plot, there is as well a nice touch in creating a writer who lives in his own fictional creation which in turn is a reflection of an ambiguous desire to give life to his true instincts. Or something like that. Although the "Sebastian" trope is an overdone cliché in gay fiction, it does support this film's recurrent dip into nudity. Indeed, showing older men as objects of passion fits the intent of the narrative very well. Beyond that I probably would not care to view it again.