Uncle David

Having been an avid watcher of The Divine David Presents, and having seen him perform live a number of times, I've always counted myself as one of David Hoyle's fans. His unsettling mixture of compassion, anger at the world's injustice, and a complementary willingness to laugh at cruelty made him a unique performer. But ten years' good work has been undone in an instant – though it felt like a small eternity – with this film. A stultifying 94-minutes of non-plot, non-acting, non-scripted tedium which was filmed on video over five days in a caravan park. Hoyle plays the eponymous character who has sex with his hunky young nephew Ashley (Ashley Ryder) and sometimes pimps him out to other men.

The film comprises mostly of Uncle David giving boring lectures on consumerism and heteronormativism to Ashley. There is a small break in the tedium when they dance around their caravan for a bit, and a nice 45-second interlude when the two characters charm some cows in a foggy field. But then we're back to Uncle David drivelling on for the third time about how people who go to work are drones and mortgages are bad. The film ends with its "shocking" climax, but it's shocking only in that it's dragged out for so long.

Seeing Hoyle live, he has a tremendous energy which somehow seems to evaporate when captured on cheap video. Even when he's smashing up some china figurines (daringly representing the Christian family) there's something quite soporific about his performance.

It's a good bit of marketing having Ryder as co-star though the man can barely act. Even a relatively simple line like "that blue's nice, it matches your top" – which is hardly "once more into the breach" – seems beyond him. Hoyle should have remembered the 27th Law of Showbiz: Porn stars and actors should never be confused. This is the law which explains why Ian McKellen was never asked to do World Soccer Orgy 3.

Although I thought it the most tedious film I've seen in years I'm sure others will warm to its critique of Western Society, its "transgressive" nature, and its shots of Ashley Ryder naked.

Oh, and one other thing. If, for some reason I can't fathom, you want to push up the film's IMDb star rating probably best not to give it ten stars as it looks a tad suspicious. Although I loathed the film I could imagine someone giving it a six or a seven. Possibly an eight. Maybe, God help us, a nine. But today's stats show that 7 out of 18 voters have given it the maximum rating believing that Uncle David is up there with The Passion of Joan of Arc, Bicycle Thieves, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey,Rosemary's Baby,….I could go on but I'd imagine you get the point.

There are moments when this film seems to have a story and destination, but Ashley Ryder, porn performer, was obviously cast for his physical appeal, not acting ability.

The story and film are lurid and puerile. Down-and-dirty film-making can be seriously brilliant (Tangerine) or shockingly poor and self-indulgent, as is this film.

If you are aware of the work of David Hoyle then you'll understand that a David Hoyle movie is probably going to be unlike most other movies. And it is.

It's not an exhilarating experience, but it's meditative, extremely funny, apocalyptic (in a personal sense) and occasionally disturbing. It's a small, intimate film, there are only two people on the screen for the majority of the running time, other people in this story hardly matter and are figures in the background. But the ideas are vast.

I loved it, but then I'm a fan of Mr.Hoyle's work and wasn't expecting a conventional film. And I didn't get one, but that's fine by me.

I've seen plenty of gay-themed movie and I am a gay man and this was absolutely one of the worst (I say "one of" to be kind but I honestly can't remember a worse movie.) Some of the dialogue is inaudible due to poor sound quality (e.g. they're talking over the sound of airplanes but the airplanes are louder.) There is very little plot and no story line to follow. No beautiful scenes. Nothing. No redeeming qualities at all. The premise of a gay man interested in his nephew might have been developed into something but it is not. The two men are just that: two men trying to make a living by making a low budget piece of crap that maybe some desperate gay film festies will use as filler. Don't even waste your time!

We look to cure the ills of the third world and this film represents the dislocation of people and norms within our own society. And we do nothing about it! I found this story horrifying yet compelling to watch as their dislocation at many levels is viewed from a sometimes close and other times distant perspective. I loved the simplicity yet haunting look at these characters. innocence and hurt, caring and giving, and sacrifice. For a extremely low budget film, I thought the acting was great, especially Ashley, who and I do not know how convinced me of his innocence. All in all a disturbing film and an indictment of our society, even the manicured and fenced caravan park shows us as being outside our environment and displaced from the world.