“Lonely”: movie review

The bright contrasts between Australia’s arid outback city and Sydney’s seductive lights and seductive beaches echo the conflict raging in the wounded hero’s head. alone. Writer/director Craig Boreham’s sexually explicit cowboy refuses to judge his corn-eating title character, even as he blurs the line between desire and treatment, at the lowest ebb, convincing himself he deserves degradation rather than love. Most convincingly, the film is an intimate study of emotionally scarred strangers finding communion through flesh that likely opens a window into their hearts.

If some of the actors are a little stiff and the conspiracy becomes futile – the inclusion of self-punishing clichés in the shocking late intermission, frustrated by the hand’s heavy penetration into BDSM territory – alone He tracks the feelings that are embedded in their troubled central love story. That romantic core, along with the film’s sex-positive attitude and unconscious admiration for nudity, should fuel continued demand for LGBTQ festivals after repeated showings in Provence and Frameline.

An archetypal western wanderer resembles Casey (Josh Lever) dressed in soft jeans, a white T-shirt and a cowboy hat on abandoned country roads. The casual simplicity with which he joins a stranger in a truck toilet paints him with Joe Buck in Grinder Age, and the film’s title, if not its tone, also echoes Andy Warhol. lonely cowboys.

Arriving in town, Casey throws a party, charges the phone, helps with Jack’s food and bottle, and then leaves until someone realizes he wasn’t invited. The grinder is your means of providing sexual satisfaction and a place to stay. He shows up on an assignment to see that the party has already started, is happy enough to compose three forms with minimal preamble (“Get the gear, man”), and then spends the night with the host, Tib (Daniel). Gabriel), once the action is over.

In response to Tibi’s questions about what brought him to town, Casey shrugged, “I’ve never seen the ocean.” But when a sleepy Tibi offers to take him to the beach, Casey refuses, saying he’d rather go alone. This solo outing soon shows the severity of the trauma hidden behind his simple swagger in a quiet, sad scene backed by Tony Buchen’s melancholy soundtrack and a photo of a naked affair in the countryside. Through a call to her mother at home during which Casey remains silent, we also learn that her father’s violence drove her away. “Wherever you are, you must stay,” her mother warns, and she screams in pain.

The circumstances that forced Casey to leave the cattle ranch where he grew up, and the great pain that accompanies them, are revealed in fragments when he meets Tib, who helps him with odd tasks like delivering furniture and gardening. Tibi also explains her own difficult family life. Her abusive white father moved away and started a new family, and while her black immigrant mother was deported, Tibi was applying to re-enter Australia.

Although this is the most common part aloneThe deepest connection between these two young bluesmen is also their strongest element, giving Gabriel the most elusive role in Tibet Polyamor. The sexual connection between them is palpable, but beyond that, the possibility of something steadily increases as they spend more time together. The dreamlike scene in which hours later they burst into the pool and swam together with Boreham and DP Dean Francis is just one example of a talent for atmospheric visual storytelling.

The story loses steam and starts to move as friction in Casey and Tibi’s new relationship breaks down, in part because the cowboy doesn’t show support when Tib needs it. Confusion and anger ensue, Casey is back on the streets again, once again lost and emotionally charged alone.

It peaked when he played a paid gig as a paid party show hosted by Mona Pietro (former rugby player Ian Roberts, who was gay at the height of his professional sports career in 1995). The older man then reluctantly offers Casey a position as houseboy and party toy, essentially depriving him of the last shred of dignity.

While the story development makes sense when put in context against Casey’s longtime crime, and Boreham is wary of portraying a cowboy as a consensual participant rather than a victim of violence, it ruins the film. The gray area where dehumanizing sex work becomes a substitute for long-term relationships has been explored with greater insight and compassion in several stone graphics films, most notably Camille Vidal-Nake. sovaji.

Some audiences may also find Casey’s subsequent recovery and steps toward meaningful romance a little too regulated. but put alone He returns to more stable ground and ends the film on a note of hopeful tenderness, reflecting that total isolation and loss bring mutual comfort.