User Reviews

This was very good to see. It was somehow incomplete. The end was for me not good. It was sweet but nothing is resolved. Yes, it seems they will go on being friends but there were far too many unanswered questions and unresolved issues. I read some critiques at another web page and all were similar. This is an old recipe with nothing new. It could have told much more. One person said it was good but a failed opportunity. I would agree.

For someone my age it is much easier to fill in the missing information because I was the same age in 1965. And it was equally terrible in America as in England although culturally where these lads were it was perhaps much harder than for me in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Furthermore, it would have been very, very rare if not unthinkable back then for anyone to have the courage of Christian either in UK or the USA. On this planet homosexuality was not only condemned universally but in most countries illegal with severe punishments and brutality. The maker of the film should have realized this fact. This film is being seen around the world thanks to internet but mostly by people who have no idea how brutal life was for homosexuals in the UK .

Possibly also the English is very difficult for people who have English as a second or third language. English is my mother language and I understand all of their speech but that is only due to years of experience. There are a number of accents for English that are quite challenging to understand. A film maker for a World Market needs now to consider these details.

Christian and James are best friends and spend most of their time together. Unbeknownst to the other boy, Christian has deeply fallen in love for his friend. There are boundaries, however, that according to some unwritten norms should not be crossed. So even as Christian wants to go beyond the limits of friendship, he is aware of his friend's obedience to the nom de pere, the name of the father, id est, the fatherly authority that has the final say. When Christian tells his friend "You don't have to do everything your old man says" he expects James to, effectively, step out of the father's commands.

But how can one subvert the mechanisms of power? There are rules and categorical imperatives out there, and somehow we must learn to survive without bequeathing upon ourselves our true nature. It's 1965 and Christian knows that homosexuality is technically illegal in England. However he finds within himself enough courage to surpass the pre-established limits. As philosopher Alan Badiou would define it "Courage is the name of something which is not reducible either to law or desire. Courage is the name for subjectivity which is irreducible to the dialectics of law and desire in its proper form". When the two boys arrive home a bit drunk and lay together on the same bed, Christian attempts to kiss James.

James reacts badly and Christian decides to sleep on the hallway, away from his friend. The next morning, the two boys have quite a heated argument about what happened. Christian assures his friend that his feelings must have been obvious "Like you didn't know", are his words. James, nevertheless, feels uneasy and insults his friend, calling him queer and sick. Christian's father arrives just in time to see the boys arguing, and then James shouts "Your son is a poof". The revelation of Christian's homosexuality will come as a shock to the father, and of course, his reaction is as bad as one could possibly imagine.

Determined to abandon the house, Christian packs up and leaves. However, remorse and guilt had weighed greatly on James so he decides to return to his friend's house. It is in that moment that the two of them coincide. After an initial outburst of violence, there is a final embrace between the two boys. They have reconciled with each other and, more importantly, they have reconciled with the truth.

With stunning visuals and clear story-telling, Sophie Boyce's short film successfully turns a common dilemma into a more appealing material. Let's not forget that in today's world we seem to be eternally concerned with an ideology of happiness. The imperative is clear: Be happy and enjoy your life and so on. In artistic creation we often see the opposite of that kind of ideology in the obsession with suffering bodies, the difficulty of sexuality, and so on. Nonetheless, we need not be in that sort of obsession because the question of art is also the question of life and not always the question of death... And if something remains undisputable in the short film's conclusion is that life is all that matters. This is, indeed, a reaffirmation of life.

"Dear Friend" is a 16-minute live action short film from 2011, so it has its 5th anniversary this year. It was written and directed by Sophie Boyce and is still her most known, only known really, work today. The film is another gay-themed short film and this one takes place in the 1960s. It is the story of a young man who falls in love with his friend, but of course times and perception of homosexuality were different back then. They certainly could have made something good with this premise, something that made a difference compared to the hundred of other gay-themed short films. But sadly, Boyce did not succeed. the film has the usual problems of the genre: There are moments of bad acting and bad writing and not just one or two. I still would not call this little movie a failure, but it's a lost opportunity for sure and there is simply not enough quality in here so that I would recommend it. Thumbs down.