I really wanted to like this movie, and I do. It's a nice little character drama, the acting and cinematography are strong across the board, and it's so refreshing to watch a gay movie without someone in the closet or dying of AIDS.
The problem was that I thought the Charlie and Sebastian characters were generally unlikable and hard to root for. Sebastian in particular is a massive trainwreck, and it's hard to see why Charlie would be pining after him for so long, or why it took so long for them to address the tension between them. Sebastian came off as charming, but also selfish and self-destructive. The film could have developed more on the pull that Charlie feels toward Sebastian in order to fix this.
Charlie's new love interest Tim, on the other hand, is almost too good to be true. He's an incredibly talented concert pianist with seemingly no flaws who keeps giving more chances to the equivocating Charlie. I imagine that by the end of it all he was almost relieved to have an excuse to quit NYC for San Francisco, just like he left his last boyfriend in Lebanon. lol
Overall I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to others. The dialogue is generally good (though I thought Sebastian's talk with his father was an exception) and the characters are fairly realistic, which is to say that they were frustrating in the ways that real people can be.
The problem was that I thought the Charlie and Sebastian characters were generally unlikable and hard to root for. Sebastian in particular is a massive trainwreck, and it's hard to see why Charlie would be pining after him for so long, or why it took so long for them to address the tension between them. Sebastian came off as charming, but also selfish and self-destructive. The film could have developed more on the pull that Charlie feels toward Sebastian in order to fix this.
Charlie's new love interest Tim, on the other hand, is almost too good to be true. He's an incredibly talented concert pianist with seemingly no flaws who keeps giving more chances to the equivocating Charlie. I imagine that by the end of it all he was almost relieved to have an excuse to quit NYC for San Francisco, just like he left his last boyfriend in Lebanon. lol
Overall I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to others. The dialogue is generally good (though I thought Sebastian's talk with his father was an exception) and the characters are fairly realistic, which is to say that they were frustrating in the ways that real people can be.