Deviant (2018) User Reviews

admirable in each aspect

[Kirpianuscus · 18 February 2020]

A story about faith. Simple, precise, convincing, touching and powerful. An useful, well , careful crafted film, giving not what you expect but the answer desired by many men. A film about faith. One of the most inspired and significant for the science to propose a new, fair perspective of relation, true relation with God.

Feels more for the purpose to shock than for the educational aspect

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 November 2020]

"Deviant" is an American live action short film from 2018, so slightly over two years old and if you want, you can watch these slightly over ten minutes on Youtube. The director is Benjamin Howard, a relatively young filmmaker, and this is one of his more recent works. He has not been in the industry for that long. It's probably also his most known and successful work with the awards attention it received. The writer is James Hall, not as prolific as Howard and usually more active in the cinematography field when it comes to production areas than in charge of the screenplay. I can see why. The story here did not win me over. Nonetheless, the aforementioned awards success may be enough to motivate him to keep working on screenplays. I guess the fact that this film scored so many wins and nominations has mostly to do with the subject. LBGT is always a grateful one these days. Sadly, for many people, the inclusion of this subject at the core of the story is already enough to call it a quality film. It shouldn't be because this is exactly thee wrong idea. You have to make a powerful movie, a convincing story instead of taking the easy way out. I would not say that this happened here, neither the positive nor the negative. Somewhere in-between. It's not a terrible movie by any means, but also not good enough for a positive recommendation I would say. One problem I had with it is that it simply jumps back and forth too often for such a short movie. It's also never really clear what happens before and after the therapy that is (because of its shock factor) at the center of it all. But it is not important either. My initial idea was that the masturbation scene is from before and the church scene from afterwards, but I could be wrong. Of course the idea that nothing changed in his behavior and lust is one that would also make sense if we say the masturbation scene happened afterwards (as well). The most haunting moment here for me was probably when the boy asked for his mom to help him and stop the pain. Still, with what we read before the credits came, the electric shock therapy was not the cruelest way of treatment back then. Worst case scenario would have been castration. I guess what maybe saved him (and others) from that was the idea that he would need his genital to give pleasure to his wife in the future. But let's not get drifted away now and stop with the speculation. I think with better focus this could have been a good film. The idea deserves elaboration and also what happened back then must be told to people still today. Sadly the filmmaking class to make it a satisfying watch is not included here. So the outcome is sub-par. I give it a thumbs-down and suggest you don't fall for this being a quality piece of filmmaking only because of the subject it deals with. Not recommended. Oh yes, I almost forgot: Lead actor is Rudy Pankow who has been in a Muse music video and a mildly successful television show, bit nobody from the cast is famous here, not even remotely, and that also includes the lead. That's all. Watch something else instead.