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Come Undone

Come Undone

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $26.96
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: French Film Rules
Review: Yet another great French film. If you've tired of Hollywood banality, particularly how it portrays adolescence & coming of age stories, then you should get over any aversion to subtitles & hunt this one down. Like Nico & Danii, this film presents 2 teenage boys coming of age [...] without Hollywood glamour or easy answers. The problems these 2 face are very common, but their stellar acting & a bit of rough editing from the director keeps your attention. Too many US films bore you by barrelling you over the head with a brick with their foreshadowing, slick cinematography, and blaring soundtrack. Not only does the subtlety of acting & plot in french film give way to greater unpredictability, but it also lends itself toward greater emotional engagement with the subject matter, this despite the fact that the plot usually covers more mundane terrain. In this film, the development of the relationship between a working class food stand worker & a bourgeois vacationer over the course of the summer is engaging because of its attention to detail rather than excess. The film isn't for everyone though. The editing is a bit rough & I'm not still convinced the director couldn't have done a bit more to explain the bourgeois' youth's decision for his actions at the end (don't want to spoil it). But it is nice to see something without a tidy ending & leaves you to put the pieces together. The soundtrack by Perry Blake is also a nice change (similar to Elliot Smith or Rufus Wainright) from the usual barrage of pop, rock & electronica tunes, which now seems to be required fare for any movie dealing with teens.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pressures of young love
Review: A boy in love with another boy. A man in love with another man. This movie is a first time trick that ends up a relationship. As we all know we fall in love with our first. This movie explains it well. As well it shows the ultimate hurtful falling of a first time relationship. From beginning to end we feel for a young man going through family crisis durig the peak of his hormonal feelings. Ultimitely all ends in disaster and than a new begins all over. We are left to wonder where this young man will end up but as well are given an idea on a possible new relationship. Come Undone is a movie that feels real and alows you to smile, laugh and show sorrow all in one.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very, very slow.
Review: I had reasonable expectations for this film - I didn't go in with high hopes, and I didn't go in thinking it would suck. What I didn't expect (because I hadn't read the reviews) were the long, drawn-out, wordless interludes featuring a depressed Mathieu staring unendingly at something, and the completely unsatisfying and sudden ending.

In a nutshell, the movie centers around Mathieu, an 18-year-old young man vacationing with his family at the beach. His family consists of his chronically depressed mother, his angry sister, and someone who may be their aunt, and no one is terribly happy with each other. Mathieu meets Cedric at the beach, and there is an instant spark between them. The two soon become intimate and then fall in love. The film shifts back and forth through about three different times in these peoples' lives, showing us what happened, and showing us (sort of) how they got there.

There are a few fairly intense erotic scenes between Cedric and Mathieu, and, sadly, tho are the only real highlights of the film, unless you really, really enjoy the aforementioned angst-ridden staring-out-the-window sequences interspersed with family hostility and bitterness.

The ending gives utterly no sense of closure, and the viewer is left wondering, "why was I supposed to care about these people, and why did I just spend two hours of my life watching this crap?"

The special features aren't worth mentioning, either. Overall, it was hugely disappointing, and I don't recommend it at all. It's less of a love story and more of an introverted series of flashbacks.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Wonderful Masterpiece
Review: This movie has recieved several bad reviews and I can understand that. This movie is a rather complex movie and not the typical "first gay love movie", but if you like movies that are not, this one if a must have. The movie is not a hardcore sex movie, in fact there is only one scene of sex, in the movie. The positives of this movie are, it uses silence as a tool and it looks into a differnt kind of first love, one that doesn't turn out in the same way other movies portray. Again, I only recomend this movie to people who enjoy complex movies and are not looking for just hardcore sex.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Beautiful men - boring film
Review: Quick summary: don't waste your money on this dull flick, unless you are really keen to see the very attractive actors frolicking topless, and even then beware that there is only one (brief) sex scene - although it is quite a hot one.

It is interesting that the last few years has seen an explosion in gay films on DVD. Not sure what has caused this, but rest assured quantity is not related to quality.

This film is the story of two very handsome young man - a lean, long-limbed, very French looking guy and his boyfriend - a hunkier, very sexy number who many of us will recall from the excellent film "Wild Reeds". They meet in summer when both are very tanned and spending a lot of time on the beach. They kiss and make love in very poorly lit scenes, and have one rather sexy romp in the sand dunes. Mostly off-camera, it all goes pear-shaped and the skinnier guy goes sort of crazy, develops pale skin and has a lot of very long Meaningful Close-Ups and other long pointless scenes to illustrate his unexplained and uninteresting depression.

This is not a very good film, despite the appeal of the lead actors. It is just another disappointing film that has been attractively packaged to cash in on the obviously thriving "gay genre" DVD. Hardly anything happens in this movie, which is fine if the characters are interesting (and they are not). What does happen occurs mostly off-camera. The support actors are dull (especially the sour-faced anorexic sister). There are a couple of good scenes but they are so infrequent and hidden amongst such a huge amount of boring, pretentious filler that they lose their impact. The script is rambling, the editing poor. In the hands of a good editor this could have been a good short film maybe, but as a feature it is a dull, overblown failure with delusions of artistic importance.

Get "Wild Reeds" instead - a truly excellent film and starring the sexier half of the dup trying valiantly to save "Come Undone."

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Keep your fast forward button handy.
Review: I suppose the director could have developed the characters and told a story, but then he wouldn't have had time for endless shots of people staring into space and walking around.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Come undone
Review: The key to this movie for me is patience. I found it challenging to understand the subtle nuances, and appreciate the periods of silence. I am pleased I stuck with it as it has been an interesting journey. Besides, the actors are a joy to look at.


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