A subject such as the sexual abuse of children will always be one cast down to the independent filmmakers with far less money and far less at stake. Greg Araki, always an outsider looking in due to his graphic and intentionally shocking style, may have felt an intimate connection with the material, not necessarily because of the child abuse so much as the isolation and alienation experienced by the two main characters. Even in a place like Hollywood, it cannot be easy being a gay Asian-American director with a penchant for explicit stories and characters.
Despite this treacherous foundation, Araki was able to gain funding on the basis of adding two up-and-coming actors of their time, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg. Interestingly, the scenes these two share together garner the best emotional elements of the film, conjuring up feelings of unrequited love as well as a kinship expressed without words, instead based on implication and shared past experience and secrecy. However, Trachtenberg has far too little time on-screen, making her character close to obsolete and nearly ruining the sweet chemistry her scenes with Gordon-Levitt create. Curiously, Araki maintains a strict editing style of crosscutting between two young men on very different pathways who nevertheless will inevitably come together since they always do in these types of stories. Brady Corbet, in the film's best performance, plays the shy, introverted and perpetually skittish Bryan, a marked distinction from Gordon-Levitt's Neil, who is sexually self-destructive and unafraid of whatever crosses his path.
Corbet, looking like a young, more passive Jeffrey Dahmer, brings a quiet sensibility to the film through his tousled blond hair, thick and bulging glasses and a still, intimate voice that can boom when necessary. His scenes involving a search for aliens as a possible solution to his nightmares are both quirky and seductive, giving us an off-balanced portrayal of isolated teens in a faraway town doing what they feel is absolutely nothing of importance or value. In the same area, Gordon-Levitt's Neil, with a strangely shaped black mullet and lips curled slightly down to give off a sexual charge, reacts to domestic insecurity by being as irreverent and adventuresome as possible. This decision eventually takes him to New York City and back home again where he is forced to confront something he has known his whole life but has kept from everyone except Trachtenberg's Wendy, despite it involving Bryan.
Without going into the full details, it requires one to say that the last few minutes of the film will certainly challenge almost everyone watching. Yet, for some, it may be a challenge of logic rather than taste and acceptance. Gordon-Levitt recounts the film's early events so plainly that it makes it impossible for us to feel any sympathy for his character and how he turns out. After all, he seems to feel no trauma, so perhaps he wasn't? Furthermore, his decisions of vocation as a young man leave one feeling he gets what he deserves rather than empathy and victimization. The only true victim of this film is Bryan, who reacted in such a starkly different way that it makes us more interested in his case rather than Neil's, whose story has been told before in other films.
This disconnect leaves Araki with the irony of having a story line that he does not need but cannot get rid of if he stays on the course he wants. In the end, he holds onto his straight and narrow path, giving us almost exactly what we expected from the beginning. This causes the early scenes to be uncomfortable but not for the reasons Araki intends. They are uncomfortable and unnecessary, a most lethal combination. Whatever Araki's intentions with this story, it can be safely assumed that his message was already widely accepted beforehand, rendering anything he had to say all but useless and redundant. Even though one may have the reputation for being provocative and graphic, this may not always be the best course of action in order to lure in a consistent audience.
Despite this treacherous foundation, Araki was able to gain funding on the basis of adding two up-and-coming actors of their time, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg. Interestingly, the scenes these two share together garner the best emotional elements of the film, conjuring up feelings of unrequited love as well as a kinship expressed without words, instead based on implication and shared past experience and secrecy. However, Trachtenberg has far too little time on-screen, making her character close to obsolete and nearly ruining the sweet chemistry her scenes with Gordon-Levitt create. Curiously, Araki maintains a strict editing style of crosscutting between two young men on very different pathways who nevertheless will inevitably come together since they always do in these types of stories. Brady Corbet, in the film's best performance, plays the shy, introverted and perpetually skittish Bryan, a marked distinction from Gordon-Levitt's Neil, who is sexually self-destructive and unafraid of whatever crosses his path.
Corbet, looking like a young, more passive Jeffrey Dahmer, brings a quiet sensibility to the film through his tousled blond hair, thick and bulging glasses and a still, intimate voice that can boom when necessary. His scenes involving a search for aliens as a possible solution to his nightmares are both quirky and seductive, giving us an off-balanced portrayal of isolated teens in a faraway town doing what they feel is absolutely nothing of importance or value. In the same area, Gordon-Levitt's Neil, with a strangely shaped black mullet and lips curled slightly down to give off a sexual charge, reacts to domestic insecurity by being as irreverent and adventuresome as possible. This decision eventually takes him to New York City and back home again where he is forced to confront something he has known his whole life but has kept from everyone except Trachtenberg's Wendy, despite it involving Bryan.
Without going into the full details, it requires one to say that the last few minutes of the film will certainly challenge almost everyone watching. Yet, for some, it may be a challenge of logic rather than taste and acceptance. Gordon-Levitt recounts the film's early events so plainly that it makes it impossible for us to feel any sympathy for his character and how he turns out. After all, he seems to feel no trauma, so perhaps he wasn't? Furthermore, his decisions of vocation as a young man leave one feeling he gets what he deserves rather than empathy and victimization. The only true victim of this film is Bryan, who reacted in such a starkly different way that it makes us more interested in his case rather than Neil's, whose story has been told before in other films.
This disconnect leaves Araki with the irony of having a story line that he does not need but cannot get rid of if he stays on the course he wants. In the end, he holds onto his straight and narrow path, giving us almost exactly what we expected from the beginning. This causes the early scenes to be uncomfortable but not for the reasons Araki intends. They are uncomfortable and unnecessary, a most lethal combination. Whatever Araki's intentions with this story, it can be safely assumed that his message was already widely accepted beforehand, rendering anything he had to say all but useless and redundant. Even though one may have the reputation for being provocative and graphic, this may not always be the best course of action in order to lure in a consistent audience.