Danny in the Sky

There is one very good reason to watch this film: Thierry Pepin as Danny. He is, without doubt, one of the most exquisite boys on film, with a stunning body and a profound natural sexiness. He also happens to be a very good actor, a fact which might well be overlooked because his beauty and potent physical presence are so overpowering.

Danny's life is a rather gut-wrenching tragedy. He has been orphaned by the death of his mother, and is further alienated by the coldness and brutality of his frustrated gay father. Desperate to be loved, Danny uses his extraordinary looks to get a semblance of it by modeling and, eventually, stripping in a gay club.

His father's distance and anger derive from his decision, supposedly for Danny's benefit, to 'act straight' as he raised his son. An unfortunate choice for them both. His behavior is a study in the negative effects of repression. After one vile act of violence too many, Danny leaves home for good.

Rejected by his father, abandoned by his girlfriend, and betrayed by his cousin, Danny commits an irresponsible and perilous act of revenge. He immediately regrets it, but the damage is done and he must live with the consequences.

Danny's humiliation and isolation is complete when his father finally chooses to embrace his homosexuality, and does so by sleeping with his son's only friend. This is truly one nasty guy. Danny is now truly alone. No friends. No family. One can only hope that he might live to find the peace and love he so consciously, and heartbreakingly, seeks.

I had the distinct displeasure of seeing this film at the Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. I could write a novel about all of the things that were wrong with this film, but instead I will break it down into just a few parts:

a) The cast - Sure, the himbos were nice to look at, but unfortunately any skin baring did little to ease the trauma of the terrible performances that were unfolding before my very eyes.

b) The script - I doubt if the writer(s) of this film had ever taken a Screenwriting class. The movie is filled with wooden dialogue, inplausible set-ups and not one of the characters has even one shred of likability (they're all pretty much wastes of human beings, except for Danny's dead model mother who we know nothing about, except she did drugs). I don't mind having unlikable characters in films, but if you're going to make us hate everyone at least do it in a film where something interesting happens.

I also believe the director is to blame. What made him think that people would want to watch a trainwreck/disaster like this? Just because you have some attractive men taking off their clothes-it doesn't mean that will sustain an audience's attention for 90 min.

AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!

When I went to see Danny in the Sky, I was all by myself in the theatre and I understood why after seeing the worst movie made in Quebec over the past 5 years. The acting is amateur, the story is boring and the whole thing is very pretentious. They should have hired real actors instead of professional models. I went to see the film because I had read that the director was extremely proud of his film and that his casting had been done very meticulously. Well, talk about overestimating yourself ! What I don't understand is that the director actually got a grant from the government to shoot his film (because this is how it works in Canada, every movie is subsidized by the government since no entrepreneur has enough guts to risk his own money in moviemaking). How can they waste taxpayers' money on that film when a great little film like "Stephanie, Nathalie, Caroline and Vincent" (made in Quebec in 2001) could not get a penny from the government and had to be financed entirely by its producer?

Langlois has a feel for the social content of his stories. There is no Quebec director that I know of who treats the vicissitudes of modern, mainstream gay life with Langlois's acuity and candour.

Because Langlois is something of a small ` m ' maverick, working on the outskirts of the industry with his regular collaborator, producer an co-scripwriter Bertrand Lachance, his movies have a freshness, a directness. Langlois's latest, Danny in the Sky, represents a step up for the director. It's a bigger budget project with higher production values and slick cinematography courtesy of Stefan Ivanov (whose credits include Rodrigue Jean's gritty Full Blast and idiosyncratic Chilean auteur Raoul Ruiz's Généalogies d'un crime). With clothes provided by a slew of Quebec designers and a bumping soundtrack featuring cuts from such techno heroes as DJ Mutante, Les Jardiniers, Luc Raymond and Alain Vinet, to name a few, the film is a showcase for local talent. What Danny does offer (…) is some insight into the slippery nature of sexuality and masculinity. Though feminized by being an object of adoration, a commodity whose body is for sale, Danny learns to forge his own identity. It's such insights that keep me interested in Langlois's work. He has an angle.

Even the worst film ever made may have some compensations. In the case of DANNY IN THE SKY, it's scene after scene of glorious male pulchritude. It would appear that all male cast members were required by contract to doff their shirts at least once per scene. It goes without saying that all the boys in this film ("boys" in the gay-male sense: young men between the ages of 18 and, oh, 26) are beautiful specimens -- it would be pointless for them to be otherwise -- with special props to Thierry Pepin in the title role, who may have the most flawless physique in cinematic history. Unfortunately, every time an actor opens his mouth, the film -- intellectually -- goes down the tubes. The writing, acting, sets, and direction are all uniformly awful. Since this film was made in French (in Quebec) with English subtitles, the only way to watch the DVD is sans subtitles, or with the sound turned off altogether, which should help concentrate your mind on the only possible justification for DANNY IN THE SKY: Thierry Pepin's body.