This amounts to a 90 minute salute to extreme homophobia and self-hatred. Jonathan, who, for unknown reasons, gets the film named after him (his farmboy good looks and bare-assed naked romps in the woods with his dying father's nurse?) is, quite simply, one of the most hateful characters I've ever seen in a film. A close second is his aunt, a psycho-Christian who won't go near her dying brother, who is in the last weeks of his life and in great physical and psychological pain (a neat combination of advanced cancer and shame). The acting and screenplay are atrocious (especially Jonathan, who may look good onscreen but I wish they had limited his words and some laughable actions, like slamming his fists into the sea in a homophobic fit and destroying his homemade lamp workshop) and the direction is nauseatingly slow and repetitive. There are a few - VERY few - moments of grace when the father's long-lost lover shows up about two thirds of the way into the film, but even then the family members go to extremes to show their hatred for him (the sister fires a shotgun in the air within a minute after he shows up on her property). There really are no redeeming features to this mess. And why the heck is it being pushed - by IMDb and Amazon - as a gay-themed film? Far from it! Go watch the utterly glorious "God's Own Country" (the best gay film in decades) or some of the wonderful gay films coming from Brazil, Portugal, and Spain.
Review of Jonathan
