Casey is a drifter from the country who arrives in Sydney with a cowboy hat and not much else. He crashes a party, where he is clumsily hit on by a girl, but he brushes her off and leaves before he's discovered as an interloper.
He stumbles into a scene in which two men are going at it, and responds to their invitation to join in. He ends up staying, and forms a casual relationship with Tib, who was the bottom in that threesome.
Tib is even able to fix the homeless Casey up with work as an "i-tasker", doing odd jobs advertised online. However, when he responds violently to the incursion of another man into their bed, Tib kicks Casey out.
Casey has no problem finding gay sex, but seems to miss the mark in finding any other kind of connection. He winds up as the "houseboy" at a BDSM themed party, in a series of very distressing scenes in which he is degraded. I felt like I was at that party too, and desperately wanted to leave.
The guy who employs him at the party looks like a rugby star turned boxer, with handsome, hypermasculine features that have clearly been through their share of wars. I wasn't surprised to find that the actor playing him did in fact play rugby - and in the mid-'90s, became the first rugby player in the world to come out as gay, as well as the first high profile Australian sportsperson to do so.
The movie kind of has a happy ending. At least, I think it's intended as such. The thing is that the acting from the guy who plays Casey, Josh Lavery, is off. It is hard to believe some of his line readings, especially in the more dramatic scenes. He has barely any dialogue - the movie goes for that whole arty minimalist approach where the characters give nothing away - but he's not a skilled enough actor to convey anything much without dialogue.
The movie might have the most explicit gay sex I've seen in a movie that isn't real. That's about all you'll take away from it, because the plot is faint, and the lead performance barely registers.
He stumbles into a scene in which two men are going at it, and responds to their invitation to join in. He ends up staying, and forms a casual relationship with Tib, who was the bottom in that threesome.
Tib is even able to fix the homeless Casey up with work as an "i-tasker", doing odd jobs advertised online. However, when he responds violently to the incursion of another man into their bed, Tib kicks Casey out.
Casey has no problem finding gay sex, but seems to miss the mark in finding any other kind of connection. He winds up as the "houseboy" at a BDSM themed party, in a series of very distressing scenes in which he is degraded. I felt like I was at that party too, and desperately wanted to leave.
The guy who employs him at the party looks like a rugby star turned boxer, with handsome, hypermasculine features that have clearly been through their share of wars. I wasn't surprised to find that the actor playing him did in fact play rugby - and in the mid-'90s, became the first rugby player in the world to come out as gay, as well as the first high profile Australian sportsperson to do so.
The movie kind of has a happy ending. At least, I think it's intended as such. The thing is that the acting from the guy who plays Casey, Josh Lavery, is off. It is hard to believe some of his line readings, especially in the more dramatic scenes. He has barely any dialogue - the movie goes for that whole arty minimalist approach where the characters give nothing away - but he's not a skilled enough actor to convey anything much without dialogue.
The movie might have the most explicit gay sex I've seen in a movie that isn't real. That's about all you'll take away from it, because the plot is faint, and the lead performance barely registers.