RipDelight
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Miss_NightHawk
Truthfully, I really enjoyed the movie. However, I found the beginning a bit slow moving, which caused me to debate whether it was worth my time numerous times during the first twenty minutes or so. But once the story got rolling, it was quite interesting and kept me hooked. Of course, I believe Nathan Davies (Stephen Bender), our protagonist of the film, was a bit too awkward at the start of the movie, although maybe in his situation (a molested teenager in a secret relationship with his boy-next-door classmate) his overly awkwardness is justified.Maximilian Roeg did a good job playing Roy, although the audience may get mix feelings about the boy-next-door throughout the film because of his quick brutality and also his soft spot for Nathan. Finally, the ending becomes a bit confusing, what with a ghostly apparition of Nathan's father, a creepy plantation seemingly just thrown into the movie to spice things up, quick short clips of Nathan being raped, and then the funeral. It is difficult to decipher what happened in the last ten or so minutes of Dream Boy, but one thing is clear. An innocent boy lost his childhood and his life to molestation and finally rape, all because people couldn't accept the relationship between Roy and Nathan, as well as stand up against Nathan's father. For these reasons, as well as the fact that the relationship between Nathan and Roy was overly quick, and the way the parents seemed underdeveloped, I give this movie 6 stars.
zingbot1000
I was thoroughly enjoying this film, with its talented and attractive two leads, the evocative setting, and a decently realistic premise.Then came the final act.What happens in the ending is both poorly written and a waste of a potentially fantastic film. In a story that felt so natural and real, the entire third act comes seemingly out of nowhere in effort to force the characters into a specific type of ending. An ending which, though I would have preferred otherwise, could have been achieved much more organically with story pieces already in place (the father) instead of driving an underdeveloped secondary character into an unjustifiable decision, and forcing a main character to passively accept their fate with no fight.Awful. Truly awful.
foxc-2
I'm a gay man so I can speak with some credibility about the portrayal of the main characters in this film. There is no chemistry portrayed here and although the leads are cute and the situations realistic, for the most part (teenagers take every moment for personal connections no matter how inappropriate or imprudent they may be) we are left with a coming-of-age story that while sweet and tender against all apparent odds is betrayed by a thin-as-paper, muddled plot that is formulaic and unsatisfying. The adults are cardboard and the parallelism with "Brokeback Mountain", hyped on the cover, are obvious and contrived. Nowhere do we get the deeply religious/conservative milieu of the 70's Deep South in which the primal and quite beautiful emotional drive of these two boys is cast, beyond episodic church scenes with flatulent pastoral murmurings. So much could've been made of the story but it's a wasted effort I'm afraid.
gradyharp
Back in 1995 Jim Grimsley published DREAM BOY, the second novel of his continuing examination of the coming of age in the South and followed by the equally popular COMFORT AND JOY, BOULEVARD, FORGIVENESS, MY DROWNING etc. It took many years of for James Bolton ('Eban & Charley', 'The Graffiti Artist') to decide to adapt this story to the screen, and while Bolton elected to replace much of the lyricism of Grimsley's prose with extended periods of non-verbal communication in the screenplay, the story of two high school kids coming to grips with a mutual attraction in the dank repressive aura of the South manages to still come through intact. Nathan (Stephen Bender) is a quiet, reclusive sophomore in high school who is settling in to yet another move by his alcoholic, Bible-pounding, abusive father (Thomas Jay Ryan) and his sympathetic mother (Diana Scarwid). Next door lives handsome jock Roy (Maximillian Roeg) who befriends Nathan, shares homework, and when he is not with his girlfriend, offers Nathan rides in the school bus he drives. Exchanges of glances and the growth of mutual attraction between the boys lead to a very private but sincere physical relationship: Nathan does not share with Roy that he has suffered sexual abuse from his father. Roy and his buddies - Burke (a very promising Randy Wayne) and Randy (Owen Beckman) - begin to join the boys on swimming gigs and finally a camping trip that includes visitation of an old deserted and possibly haunted plantation house. What happens in this mysterious place provides the climax of the story - a brutal surprise ending that then transports the film into another dimension - a region the viewer must decide is satisfying or not. There are some fine moments in this little low budget movie and the presence of Maximillian Roeg, Diana Scarwid, and Randy Wayne lifts the cast to a higher level of competence. Whether or not the viewer is willing to go along with the ending will make the vote for or against the film. Bolton does have a fine touch with stories about the coming out of young men in his films and his ability to capture the Gothic atmosphere of the South is solid. Grady Harp
