Waedliman

I really worship Schiller and his plays. He created his Sturm und Drang, when it was right to fight for justice and the right cause. Nothing less is told in Don Carlos or Wilhelm Tell. But if a director thinks he needs to write his own story, then he is destined to fail. And that's what happens here. I am not too picky about the accuracy of the plot but when I tell a story that happens at a certain place, then let it at least look real. The Vierwaldstättersee is turned into a wild sea, there is talking about a gorge in Küssnacht, but there is no such thing. And the Alps hardly ever look Swiss but more Italian or Austrian. The violence is unnecessary and overdone, the acting is wasted on bad dialogue and sometimes overacting and what's with Queen Agnes and the cliffhanger? Really? Who needs that? I don't because I'm definitely not interested.

What was wrong with being gay in 2012? Why did a film like this one have to be so lackluster, boring and depressing? Is it because that's just the way love is in Manhattan, where nobody deserves to be happy? Or is it rather because it's so easy to take all the well-known ingredients out of the sorcerer's hat and present them to the audience as if they were something new? Sorry, but Keep The Lights On is about 20 years too late for that. And not even the two Danish actors can save this lame and slow film, the story of which is dragged on and on in lack of something really substantial to say. The drug angle was not convincing, the toxic relationship see-through right from the beginning. Sorry, and keep dreaming of winning a Teddy Award for this.

When I look at casting lists of movies and the name Udo Kier pops up, I know that that film can't be any good. Unfortunately House Of Boys didn't prove me wrong. Kier could never act. And even the lip-synching is horrible. But he is not alone. With one or two exceptions the whole cast of this film is challenged and overwhelmed with their task to act. So in the end this looks like a film d'auteur made for television with a lot of ambition and heart but lacking of craft and money. The three acts of the film end in a sob fest and Amsterdam at Christmas looks like a typical Zeffirelli production of La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera House. No, this is not a good film, no matter how ambitious it may seem.