Movies that are more about the inner lives, emotions and growth of the characters than they are about the situations depicted frequently have a hard time with critics and audiences. So it seems to be with this film, which is deeper than most of the reviewers seem able to see.
The one facet of this production that most reviewers complain about is the writing. Well, I'm here to say that the writing is intelligent and subtle and just this side of brilliant. The people in Poster Boy aren't the one-dimensional, good or bad, smart or silly, honest or conniving characters they might have been. They're multifaceted, exposed in greater detail as the film goes on, and they all take emotional journeys, becoming larger and different, if still humanly flawed, from who they were at the start. Even the politician/father is more complex than we think at first; although perhaps predictably, because of the career he's chosen, he moves the least of the major characters.
Henry Kray is embittered by the politicization of his life, yet we see him beginning to hope against his experience that the feelings Anthony shows him might possibly be real. Anthony, for his part, is in it at first for the political effect he can create by outing Henry, but he begins to see there's more to Henry than just the politician's son, and that the cause he was using Henry for is more complicated than he thought. The politician's wife shakes off her complacent acceptance of her role as scenic sidekick to the Senator. Izzie opens up more than she thought possible at first==Parker's knock at the gym door at the end, and Izzie's opening that door is the closest the movie comes to a conventional romance, but is just as much a metaphor for moving on after finally accepting what she's lost.
Some people have expressed surprise or disappointment that Henry and Anthony didn't end up together; but this isn't primarily a romance. It's a story of realistic, imperfect people who touch each other's lives and take what they've experienced into their futures.
This is one of the most intelligent movies of its kind this writer has ever seen, and sadly underestimated by most of its audience. 9 out of 10.
The one facet of this production that most reviewers complain about is the writing. Well, I'm here to say that the writing is intelligent and subtle and just this side of brilliant. The people in Poster Boy aren't the one-dimensional, good or bad, smart or silly, honest or conniving characters they might have been. They're multifaceted, exposed in greater detail as the film goes on, and they all take emotional journeys, becoming larger and different, if still humanly flawed, from who they were at the start. Even the politician/father is more complex than we think at first; although perhaps predictably, because of the career he's chosen, he moves the least of the major characters.
Henry Kray is embittered by the politicization of his life, yet we see him beginning to hope against his experience that the feelings Anthony shows him might possibly be real. Anthony, for his part, is in it at first for the political effect he can create by outing Henry, but he begins to see there's more to Henry than just the politician's son, and that the cause he was using Henry for is more complicated than he thought. The politician's wife shakes off her complacent acceptance of her role as scenic sidekick to the Senator. Izzie opens up more than she thought possible at first==Parker's knock at the gym door at the end, and Izzie's opening that door is the closest the movie comes to a conventional romance, but is just as much a metaphor for moving on after finally accepting what she's lost.
Some people have expressed surprise or disappointment that Henry and Anthony didn't end up together; but this isn't primarily a romance. It's a story of realistic, imperfect people who touch each other's lives and take what they've experienced into their futures.
This is one of the most intelligent movies of its kind this writer has ever seen, and sadly underestimated by most of its audience. 9 out of 10.