Check Out the Trailer

At a running time of 99 minutes, I wanted more. The film comes to a fine and inevitable resolution, but I wanted to find out how the truth would affect the characters’ future. This is the only thing that keeps this film from being truly brilliant. Nonetheless, this is an important film that should not be missed for those seeking serious and provocative cinema.

When Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU) and Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet, THIRTEEN) were kids, they played on a Little League team together. They weren’t friends, but they share an experience that has influenced their lives in profound ways. One day when a game was rained out, their coach, Heider (Bill Sage, BOILER ROOM), molested them.

Neil knew from a young age that he was gay when he was turned on by the boyfriends of his mother, Ellen (Elisabeth Shue, THE KARATE KID). Brian was most likely straight, but the incident made him awkwardly asexual thereafter. Neil remembers exactly what happened to him, but Brian has blacked out the memories.

Now the two kids are 18. Neil has become a male prostitute and Brian is beginning to believe he was abducted by aliens. The story follows the two characters, showing how the sexual abuse has adversely affected their lives.

What makes the film so great is that it addresses areas of the issue that I haven’t seen before. With Brian, the film shows a young man struggling to make sense of something bad that happened in the past that his mind has been trying to block out. He desperately tries to figure out the truth, eventually seeking out Avalyn Friesen (Mary Lynn Rajskub, SWEET HOME ALABAMA), who also believes she was abducted. Brian just wants to find someone who can help him make sense of what happened to him so long ago.

For Neil, the film is bold in showing how molestation affects a child who on some level welcomes it. Why this part is so amazing is that it subtly shows that despite Neil’s positive feelings for the coach, the violation of trust and the forcing of emotions on a child who really doesn’t understand what is going on still has a profoundly negative affect on Neil. Like Brian becoming asexual, Neil has become emotionally vacant when it comes to sex. His best friend Wendy Peterson (Michelle Trachtenberg, TV’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) sums up Neil the best — she says, “Where everyone else has a heart, Neil McCormick has a black hole.” The coach was the first person to really care about Neil and make him feel worthwhile, so the violation crushed him on so many levels.

The film does deal with the male prostitution elements as other films have done in the past, but Neil’s reasons for it are key to his character. Gordon-Levitt is astonishingly good. Corbet also gives a noteworthy performance. They are truly talented young actors. The film is powerful, uncompromising and thought provoking. Director Gregg Araki (THE DOOM GENERATION) has arrived as a filmmaker to watch.