Kiss the Sky

This is possibly the only intelligent US movie ever made with a menage-a-trois theme. It also involves some metaphysical rudiments that are rather well presented. The Philippine locations are attractive and rarely enough featured in movies to provide additional interest. Sheryl Lee is drop-dead gorgeous and does an excellent job with her role. The two male leads have a bit simpler task, but they too come across very well. Terence Stamp in the role of a Dutch monk is a blast. A thoughtful, well-paced jewel of a movie that did not get the boxoffice success it should have had.

I accidentally watched this movie around four or five years ago on TV as I spent my time away searching for something to watch on a friends house in the Middle East. I wasn't even focusing much on the plot then or whatsoever though the few naked scenes which I had the luck of seeing first of all the other scenes kept me interested enough so as not to switch channels for a while. I found it not really my type then (because then I was just in my mid thirties?). What interested me more afterward as this movie rolled on was that the language spoken in the background (aside from English) and the scenery seemed to be all too familiar. I'm a Filipino and hey, they were speaking Tagalog and those were places and items from the Philippines..the beaches, the markets, the festivals, the foot-pedaled trikes, passenger jeepneys etc., etc... In particular I was puzzled by their depiction and use of the Taal volcano island on Taal lake which they seemed to call Lake Toba in the film. Well back then, I already had this grand illusion that such place is the most beautiful of all places in the world (and I did travel a lot worldwide). The movie at least jived with my opinion that that place is paradise literally (though of course as the monk has said we create our own paradises or we pursue our paradises in vain?). Anyway these days I searched again for this movie for another value since I turned 40. It really appealed to us mid-lifers- white or Asian perhaps. Enjoy watching- its about you if you are more like my age and male of course. Though of course I don't approve of the threesome. And I love Sheryl Lee, I wonder where she is now.

It is no secret that many forty-something men are dissatisfied with their lives. And it is no big new plot story for them to run off from their married lives to pursue some new life of enlightenment and adventure. For those reviewers that panned this movie, that's all they got out of it. And if that's all there were to this movie, they'd be right to pan it.

Jeff and Marty are very close to each other. It would be impossible for either one of them to act without the other, at least when they start out. They have such a bond that when the much younger love interest shows up, they find a way to share her. The three way sex scenes are tastefully done, and Andy (the delicious Sheryl Lee) is clearly seduced by the idea of having two men in a sense of fun.

But they aren't the same guy. This movie is all about how they play off each other. The self-assured Jeff shows just the right amount of vulnerability, and the diffident Marty shows the right amount of insight. These two guys are different parts of a conflicted soul, too complex for a friendly Dutch monk (Terence Stamp) to guide.

A movie for adults.

Kiss the Sky is about two buddies Jeff and Marty who decide to go to the Phillipines to escape the wives and recapture the "freedom" of their youth. They end up becoming involved with a young Australian Girl played by Sheryl Lee of Twin Peaks fame. William Peterson plays Jeff, the more confident, outspoken, and dashing one and Marty is played by Gary Cole who is more emotionally shattered, but more into the religion of Buddhism.

Although the movie has some unnecessary sex scenes, it has some smartly written dialogue about the middle aged crisis that some men go through. It also shows kind of in a brutal way of what men want in a relationship and what a woman wants and how hard it is for the two sexes to communicate involving the emotions of the heart.

In their attempt to create their own Utopia, Jeff and Marty discover it is harder to turn to reality, then just holding onto the idea itself.

Terence Stamp gives the best performance playing a witty buddhist monk who gives advice to the two men. Patricia Charbonneau gives a great performance and still looks fantastic to this day.

This movie is definitely not for the whole family and I believe will cause discomfort for some men and women who watch due to honest dialogue of the movie and also because it deals with problems that I think a lot of married couples can relate to.

Wrenching depiction of the male midlife crisis, in full bloom - completely acted out, with a kiss-off to the proverbial "American Dream." Well-cast with great scenery and direction, this film brings the audience into the internal struggle of two 40-something men trying to figure out what they and women really want out of life and relationships. With hopes and desires crumbling all around them, the American Dream not satisfying them, they accept the notion of process and continuous unsettlement, whether back with their families or off in a Buddhist monastery. The problem is not in what they have or do not have - it is with themselves. Very poignant angst captures the postmodern mindset.