Let's see, does this film miss any gay cliché? Hmmm ... The singing of show tunes? Check. And the references to Judy or Barbra or Liza or Madonna or Ethel Merman? Of course, check. The promiscuity? Check. The gratuitous nude scenes? Check...and check... and -- oooh!, full frontal nudity! -- that'd be a big check again. The use of the term "girlfriend" when referring to a gay man? Ditto for the phrase "bitch?" Check and double check. Plenty of mincing and prancing around? Yeah, right there. Did we overlook that a least one guy should be a for-hire boyfriend? Nope, gay equals prostitute, ya know. Excellent, it's all here. Plus, a bit of S&M role-playing, just to spice things up.
Oops! Almost forgot the totally unnecessary display of crossdressing. Oh good, here it is -- and in ballet tutus, to boot. Gotta make it clear that to be gay is to be nelly. Oh, they were out of politically correct minorities, but will a Hispanic do? If not, they've got a blind homosexual and can toss in a couple of brave and only slightly self-pitying AIDS victims.
LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! is one of those films where you may be at a loss to figure just why it exists. Eight gay men gather during three summer holiday weekends (Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day) at the New England country home of one of them, a successful choreographer. They bicker and banter, and fight and flirt; they bare the bodies while skinny dipping and bare their souls while trading cleverly rehearsed quips -- but, so what? As sort of a gay BIG CHILL or a homosexual FOUR SEASONS, the film really doesn't give any of them a chance to reveal themselves either politically or personally. There are a few pious monologues about love and life that are so generic as to be meaningless. If the point is to show that gays are "just like everybody else," then why do all the characters seem so generically superficial and tiresomely stereotypical. If there is meant to be a message to the story, then why doesn't the film get to it?
There are some nice moments here and there as two characters share an honest or intimate moment, but too often the dialogue is arch and too theatrical to be real. Other times, the material shows its theatrical roots with an out-of-nowhere dramatic moment where you can just see a character moving to center stage to deliver his big, important monologue in the spotlight. By the time you get to the end, where each character, in voice-over, reveals the circumstances of their way-in-the-distance death -- while dancing around in tutus, no less -- you just want to scream at the filmmakers. Here's a scene that totally trivialized these characters, showing them to truly be nothing but prancing fairies, yet begs you to see into the depths of their souls and weep for the fragility of their lives. The result is totally annoying, if not absolutely insulting. If it were not for the fact that many involved in the film are openly gay, you could just swear the film was trying purposely to be smugly homophobic.
And you can't help but to groan at how needlessly self-important the material takes itself, even as it wallows in self-mockery. Too much of this is just pretentious, not the least of which is the three exclamation points in the title that just scream of announcing something of epic proportions; a false promise for a film with really very little to say.
Three words: Lousy! Vacuous! Condescending!
Oops! Almost forgot the totally unnecessary display of crossdressing. Oh good, here it is -- and in ballet tutus, to boot. Gotta make it clear that to be gay is to be nelly. Oh, they were out of politically correct minorities, but will a Hispanic do? If not, they've got a blind homosexual and can toss in a couple of brave and only slightly self-pitying AIDS victims.
LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! is one of those films where you may be at a loss to figure just why it exists. Eight gay men gather during three summer holiday weekends (Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day) at the New England country home of one of them, a successful choreographer. They bicker and banter, and fight and flirt; they bare the bodies while skinny dipping and bare their souls while trading cleverly rehearsed quips -- but, so what? As sort of a gay BIG CHILL or a homosexual FOUR SEASONS, the film really doesn't give any of them a chance to reveal themselves either politically or personally. There are a few pious monologues about love and life that are so generic as to be meaningless. If the point is to show that gays are "just like everybody else," then why do all the characters seem so generically superficial and tiresomely stereotypical. If there is meant to be a message to the story, then why doesn't the film get to it?
There are some nice moments here and there as two characters share an honest or intimate moment, but too often the dialogue is arch and too theatrical to be real. Other times, the material shows its theatrical roots with an out-of-nowhere dramatic moment where you can just see a character moving to center stage to deliver his big, important monologue in the spotlight. By the time you get to the end, where each character, in voice-over, reveals the circumstances of their way-in-the-distance death -- while dancing around in tutus, no less -- you just want to scream at the filmmakers. Here's a scene that totally trivialized these characters, showing them to truly be nothing but prancing fairies, yet begs you to see into the depths of their souls and weep for the fragility of their lives. The result is totally annoying, if not absolutely insulting. If it were not for the fact that many involved in the film are openly gay, you could just swear the film was trying purposely to be smugly homophobic.
And you can't help but to groan at how needlessly self-important the material takes itself, even as it wallows in self-mockery. Too much of this is just pretentious, not the least of which is the three exclamation points in the title that just scream of announcing something of epic proportions; a false promise for a film with really very little to say.
Three words: Lousy! Vacuous! Condescending!