San Francisco, 1985

I was hoping for a lot more from this. For starters, being old enough to remember this era, "Test" captures absolutely none of the feel of that time. If you want a genuine reflection of what things were really like, watch any of the gay films that were actually made then: "Longtime Companion", "An Early Frost" or others. Throwing in a couple of Bronski Beat songs and having your characters talk about their new Sony Walkmans is a pretty pitiful way to have to make people believe it's set in 1985.

Slow pacing, weak writing and mediocre acting don't help. This film had no emotional depth at all, which is sad considering the seriousness of the subject matter. In sum, this movie sadly adds nothing to the genre and you're probably better off watching something else.

Out of all the fascinating, extravagant, wild and simply unbelievable stories that took place in the gay sub-culture of San Francisco during the 80s, this is by far the most dull...and I know this first-hand since I lived it. A large portion of the film (probably 1/3rd) is just watching modern ballet dancing...as if that's what anyone did in SF. The music (except for one accurate tune), the hair, the clothing and the attitudes of this film are just OFF...nothing like the mid-80s....not even close. I'd say watch an actual movie about the AIDS pandemic MADE closer to the 80s (Long Time Companion, And the Band Played On, etc) if you really want to get a sense of what it was like. This just doesn't do it.

This is a reminder of an era I prefer not to think about, but I wasn't quite sure what this was about and I'm glad I watched it anyway. The fear, anxiety and lack of knowledge in regards to AIDS in the 1980's is well remembered by me, though I lived in NYC and not San Francisco as these characters do, but the ravaging was the same. There are no big dramatics here to show the overwhelming scope of this disease. It's an intimate reality of insecure and frightened individuals. I wish I could say this is some small masterpiece, but it isn't. It's an odd film made by a director who has thus far not made a film after this, and that was 9 years before this writing, with a lead who has never been in any other feature film. The cast is clearly professional dancers as at least a third of this film is modern dance scenes, so this is a feast for the affectionatos. While all of that makes this dramatically weaker, much of the dancing is mighty impressive. In the midst of AIDS in this era and all the dancing, this is also a tale of a budding relationship that ends, my favorite moment, on the most peculiar note, sort of ironically humorous. In the lead, Scott Marlowe, is a novice at acting, but he does well. The other lead, Matthew Risch, is an actor, and clearly a professional dancer as well, and he gives an honest performance. It's a quiet, very small, very well directed film that is hard to find on this site by name.

TEST is director/writer Chris Mason Johnson's second feature, sets in San Francisco, 1985, in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, Frankie (Marlowe) is a young dancer in a dancer company, currently a stand-in for a modern dance project called AFTER DARK. The film surprisingly chooses a rather poised attitude to narrate Frankie's day-to-day life, minutely records his sexual desire, the terror towards the unknown virus and the indecision regarding a new clinic test which could be a death knell for gay men, like his fellow dancer Todd (Risch) says - we come out to our family with death. Johnson never play up the platitudinous romance which is a common trait in the genre, although from their first scene together, audience can perceive a certain spark between Frankie and Todd, but it is not until near the end, they finally strike up a tentative physical contact, again no sparks fly ecstasy, but in an all-too-casual manner and without any implication for melodramatic commitment issues. It is a telling bond between two gay men who may or may not be each other's chosen one.

Artistically, the film also feels a shade different from its peers, first of all, the original choreography fashioned by Sidra Bell is nothing if not a ravishing stunt, at the same time the camera generates its own motion by gyrating fluidly around the dancers' movements. Moreover, Johnson implants Ceiri Torjussen's constantly muffled score to reflect Frankie's sensitive mental activities and deploys his Walkman and the vintage soundtrack as a reminder of the ethos of the era. An unpretentious script encapsulates a viable life trajectory of a common figure and occasionally is effervescent with amusement, such as the jest when they try to have sex with a condom for the first time and how it could end sex- activity forever, or when AIDS has been pointedly referred as an agent to instigate the wave of monogamy. Scott Marlowe firmly projects a sensitive persona on Frankie, who resembles a more lifelike character loathing promiscuity but not a total prude too, when temptation turns up, he can also egg it on if he likes it. The film is nominated for John Cassavetes Award in INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS 2015, which is definitely a tremendous spur for Johnson to proceed with his next project, and auspiciously, TEST shares a similar texture and sincerity of Andrew Haigh's WEEKEND (2011), another genre-defining contemporary LGBT indie.

Like so many in 1985 who were caught up in the AIDS crisis in New York and San Francisco, so many of us awaited the results of the crucial HIV test to determine whether we had the incurable and fatal virus. As do the members of this San Francisco based ballet company some of whom seemingly asymptomatic but still testing positive.

I was part of that also. I had a case of pneumonia which lingered on and gave me asthmatic symptoms. I had the test just as shown here and of course was relieved to be found negative.

Some are not so lucky in Test. The critical decision they have to make is what to do with their lives with a medical death sentence hanging over them.

The film is anchored in the fall of 1985 when we see references to the illness of Rock Hudson. That put a public face on the disease and spurred a bit government action on a federal level.

I am guessing that with me seeing a lack of other film credits or only a few with most of the cast their backgrounds are as dancers not actors. There are some beautiful ballet sequences here. And that lends a nice ring of authenticity to the performances.

This one is a real sleeper, se it by all means.