Hey folks, Harry here... well here's something you don't hear about often... a new Colin Farrell movie! What, it's been 2 weeks? What is this... number 45 this year? Heh... I swear he's got to be the hardest working actor that has a reputation for hijinks aplenty around. Well, this sounds like a damn fine film. Here ya go, check it out...
focus group screening of "the home at the end of the world"
Hi Harry,
Here goes:
Last night I saw what was evidently the first screening of "The Home at the End of the World", starring Colin Ferrell, Robin Wright Penn, Sissy Spacek and newcomer Dallas {Porter?), directed by first timer Michael Mayer (?) (They took my info sheet, so all the names are from memory). Screenplay by Michael Cunningham, based on his novel. Michael Cunningham is the pulitzer prize winning author of "The Hours".
I don't want to get too much into the story, because, even though this cut of the film felt mostly complete, it appears that a major character from the novel was not in this version of the film, but filmed (one could tell by the crossed out name on the survey sheets we filled out in response to the movie). I believe there may be a version of this film where this subplot exists and that this version may be tested too. It's possible that what I saw may still see much change.
However what I saw was excellent. This was Colin Farrell as I've never even dared to imagine him, sweet, confused, sexually open and natural, crying poignantly when first making love to a woman, dancing playfully with his close male friend and kissing him sensually on the mouth. Oh and yes, there was full frontal Colin without a stitch on. I wish for the sake of women and men everywhere that that makes it into the final cut.
As the previous paragraph suggests, the film deals with sexual and romantic boundary crossing - as seen throughthe prism of the 60's, where the Colin ferrel character is 9, the 70's, where he is in high school, played effectively by a Colin ferrel look-alike and the early 80's, enter Colin. Dalls P. (?) plays his close friends, a substitute for the brother he lost, Sissy Spacek pays the friend's mother, Robin Wright Penn, their close friend, with whom the friends create a romantically and sexually fluid and ambiguous menage a trois. There is also drug experimentation and tragic accidents, a lot of it disturbing or "out there" but handled in a believable way. Alot of people in the focus group attested to the fact that although some of the scenes in the movie depicted situations unusual and startling for mainstream US movies, they felt real and were recognizable to many of us.
What is lovely about the film is how it depicts many ways to eperience love, belonging, sexuality, without sensationalising what may read sensational on paper, without simplifying or categorizing. Affection, sex, love, attraction are fluid elements between which clear boundaries aren't set by the filmmakers. Through that approach they manage to create extremely specific relationships between the characters that will remind many in the audience of platonic, romantic, sexual connections of their life, especially adolescence and early adulthood.
The performers are all wonderful. Colin ferrell is all sweetness, sensitivity, sensuality, with a sense of a soul scared to be left alone, Penn is excellent, a bit like the wild times Jenny from Forest Gump without the selfdestructiveness, Dallas P. (?) is perfect as a very specific kind of gay man, handsome, nerdy, insecure, playful, he is very recognisable without resorting to anything stereotypical or obvious. Sissy Spacek is sublime. Just sublime. I don't know how to explain it without detailing plot points that I don't think would be right for me to divulge here.
Finally, I hope the film sees the light of commercial day in as good a shape or better than I saw it. There is much that is bold and discoforting-for-the-mall-crowd in it, but I thought it was lovely and really appreciated its depiction of relationships, love and sexuality that felt so true but is so unlike the mainstream movie perspective on these matters. Happily most of the people in the focus group interviewed after the film screeing rated the film "excellent" or "very good", a few said "good", one said "fair", none said "poor".
I suppose a look at Cunningham's novel, which I don't know, would give the plot of the movie. But as I said, this screening left out a major subplot and character, evidently, and anyway, this is a film that bears experiencing without knowing where it's going beforehand, because the characters are so unique and surprising.
Thanks,
Julius
