Good lesson on Life, on hurting, loving and finally letting go and accepting!
Great cast, need to see more of these actors.
Really enjoyed it.

Average Rating:

Rating: - More than good
Good lesson on Life, on hurting, loving and finally letting go and accepting!
Great cast, need to see more of these actors.
Really enjoyed it.

Rating: - Surprisingly memorable for a mediocre movie
It took me several days to get through this movie, because so much of it is so bad I had to take it in small doses. The screenplay, in particular, is terrible all the way through. The story is okay, but every word the characters have to speak is stilted, pretentious, melodramatic and very embarrassing. I genuinely felt sorry for the actors, and I don't remember ever feeling like that before. But one curious result of that sympathy: it caused me really to appreciate the two actors who managed to rise above the awful material and create believable characters and memorable moments in the movie.

I had never seen or heard of any of the actors before, although I learned after I watched it that Rena Owen is fairly well known and very well respected. She happens to be one of the good actors in this movie. She's awkward in most of the scenes where she has to act like a flippant, insecure pop star, and there are far too many of those scenes in this movie. But in the couple of scenes in which she's allowed to show raw emotions--pain, despair, grief, profound loneliness, and even a few bits of joy--she's absolutely stunning. I'm determined now to see her in something worth watching. (When she's not wearing makeup she's very beautiful. Like many unconventionally beautiful women, she looks much, much better--and younger--without makeup.)

The other standout in this cast is Dean O'Gorman as Mark. He is astonishingly, disarmingly beautiful, the only man I've ever seen who could play Alexander the Great and look exactly right (he's even the right size and build, small and lithe as an acrobat without an acrobat's odd muscle development, and he moves like a leopard). His profile alone is so lovely that it takes my breath away, at the same time both classically perfect and deeply, sensually alive.

I never expect people who look like that to have any talent at all, because they really don't need it in show business, but O'Gorman can act. (In that way--and in that way alone--he reminds me of the young Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun.) But, very refreshingly, he never *acts* beautiful, he never seems aware of how he looks, he never preens or poses, he just acts. He just creates a character on film, a believable, tangible human being whom it's possible to relate to and care about as if he were real. His is a much less flashy and more consistent performance than Owen's is, but then his is a less flashy character. Both of them are delightful, and they alone make this movie worth watching.

The rest of the cast is mediocre at best. Simon Westaway makes a fairly convincing American in a small and relatively inoffensive role, and the two girl musicians have a few (and I mean *very* few) moments when they're not unbearably annoying, but poor Simon Prast does nothing to make his vapid, posturing, thirtysomething queen substantial enough to care about. That Mark is believably in love with him is further testament to O'Gorman's skill.

Since Garth Maxwell both wrote and directed this movie, I'll blame him for its failure. That most of the actors were unable to transcend his incompetence may not be their fault. But the five or ten minutes when Owen's raw genius breaks through, and all of O'Gorman's screen time, are staying fresh in my consciousness long after the sour taste of the movie has faded away. It just occurred to me that this movie's few, actor-created successes are visual, not verbal, so it might be much better with the sound turned off.

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Rating: - A Real Stinker!
Nothing...absolutely NOTHING happens in this film. I give it one star because there is nothing after that to give...one can't give zero stars. I kept waiting for something...anything....that would make me root for the characters, but I didn't even know what was going on with them!! I've seen some bad ones in my time but this has got to be one of the worst. No payoff at the end....NOTHING!!! A confusing mess.

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Rating: - When Love NEVER Comes!
I am so glad i picked up a used copy of this dvd. Generally New Zealand movies are great entertaimnent but this one is not. I was so disapointed. Throughout the movie you wonder who is with whom and what the heck is going on. Was there even a script for this bomb. Skip this one.

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Rating: - EXCELLENT film! Could watch it over and over!!!
I don't know what the reviewer "Gordon Larko" is smoking. For some reason, he feels compelled to leave the EXACT SAME horrible review and 1 STAR rating for all GAY-THEMED movies. Probably a "personal problem" of his. Hopefully this review will help correct this imbalance. I can't believe AMAZON is allowing this GAY BASHER to use their website as a venue to spread his hate.
By the way, This is an absolutely WONDERFUL movie!

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