Reviews

interesting version of the great bartok opera which tells the story of a man and his new wife; the latter's curiosity leads to their mutual destruction. the two performers sing well, although the stylized acting of opera works less well on screen and the scenery is a little ridiculous at times because it's so unrealistic. also, the singer who plays bluebeard is a little too stoic at the end. the last scene is extremely well-done dramatically and visually -- the costumes are amazing. worth seeing this fascinating highly allegorical opera visually, although the production doesn't do very well resolving the difficulties of the staging because it tries to depict the scenes too literally.

it seems like all the reviews i've skimmed through have highly praised this flick. although i appreciated a lot about it including great performances by silverstone (ah, those brits ...) and charlotte brittain (who as linda has the most hilarious and poignant mini-soliloquy from the point of view of a "fat girl" i have ever heard) and most of its realism including a great ending, i thought there were several elements which were rather contrived, including a "coming out to the entire school" scene which veered dangerously towards cheesiness. the thing i found the hardest to believe was that there was a mutual attraction between the two boys. for one, i felt gorton as dixon, the deeply closeted love interest, was rather old for the part and that the movie didn't spend enough time developing their relationship on screen. that is, we have little to no idea of what they do when they're not horsing about, making out, or talking about how much of a strain their relationship is to the both of them. carter clearly isn't much interested in sports and dixon doesn't seem to be much interested in journalism. although it was an enjoyable movie, i don't rank it among the classics such as -beautiful thing- or john greyson's -lilies-, although they too had similar failings with regard to underdeveloping the nature of the relationship of the protagonists.