Waedliman

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.

Like many other viewers I was also pretty disturbed when I watched this film because it is pure porn in the beginning. I know such scenarios from gay sex clubs myself and what we get to see is pretty much what happens there. And even though I don't mind some nudity in films, I didn't expect this one to be so blunt. The scenario completely changes when the two main characters leave the club. It's as if they were in another world all of a sudden, reality kicks in, the awkwardness of dealing with each other. And then there is this only reason why I don't give this film the whole 10 points. The HIV angle is totally weird because we're in the late teens, not eighties. Everybody knows that HIV is nothing to be that scared about any more. But taking it as it is, the story development of what follows is just intriguing. The two guys are so adorable when they begin to fall for each other, that I was totally hooked by what they had to say, what they did, how it was filmed that in the end I was happy with the result of the whole film.