Reviews

Gosh! Its been a while since I saw a really well made good gay film that so well balances the core theme (in this case sports) and the emotional ones. I wasn't sure what to really expect but am I glad or what to have seen this beautiful film. Specially worth mentioning is the fact that the director of the film is a female and making a film on a Dutch teenager who is trudging with his sexuality while balancing his dreams as an athlete and be there for his family.

Teenage boy Sieger, a good athlete, is a caring boy who gets selected for a relay race. His brother Ed is a rebellious which is hard for their wider father who is trying to raise the boys as best as he can. Sieger seems to be compensating for his brother. Sieger and his best friend Stef get selected in the team with 2 other boys. One of them is Marc. The two boys keep stealing glances at one another and don't understand what is going on. His yearnings finally get into reality when the four boys go for swimming. When the other 2 boys leave for home, Sieger and Marc continue to swim which leads into the most beautiful kiss between the boys. Dealing with his father's emotions and Ed's rebellion, Seiger can't understand what's going on with him. His emotional immaturity to understand and accept that he doesn't like girls and may actually be gay, creates various ups and downs. WHen he is with Marc, he is happy but doesn't know whether it is right or wrong. In the process he ends up breaking Marc's heart on more than a couple of occasions. But there is only so much that can be controlled. The team finally wins the race even though Sieger had earlier snubbed Marc, he can't take it anymore. WHen he sees some support from his friend Stef, Seiger's finally accepts who is and decides to be happy with what he is.

There are so many good things and moments in this film. The film talk about family bonding, brotherly bond, importance of friendship, love, dreams, loyalty, happiness and letting everyone be what they want and deserve. The best thing about the film is that the decision that either character makes in the film is not because of just one desire or reason. instead it is the outcome of several connected events and possibilities. The scenes where Sieger is forcing himself to date a girl or the scene where he is tries to be supportive of Ed or be there for his father, are straight out of life. The friendship between him and Stef is our and even the way love blossoms between the Marc and Sieger is done with such emotional maturity but simplicity that you immediately connect with everything that's going on. Couple of kisses that the bus share are done so well and aesthetically, it melts your heart and you just want the 2 boys to be there for each other before the world corrupts their innocence. The director beautifully portrays the confusion of first love, specially because it is against the so called norms of the society. The guy who plays Seiger is unbelievably good. He plays the quiet and withdrawn character who only wants to do what's right very convincingly. Marc's role may not have been detailed as that of Siege but the guy playing the role is radiant and easy to fall for. I liked the family dynamics of Marc. Also the one thing that I liked was that even though Ed and the father had their own differences, there was an inherent love and respect for each other which was within boundaries. You realize that the film maker knows exactly what she was making.

Ending the film with an excellent music , this drama about first love and conflating feelings is a must watch. Not many love stories touch you without being overly dramatic or melancholic.

I absolutely loved this film. This film was comical, funny, emotional , romantic, had family values. In short it had everything that makes my heart feel glad with happiness and satisfaction. There wasn't a single moment in the film that got me bored. The film was not too lengthy , which kept everything interesting. Everything was right, without over-acting and subtle. It doesn't mean the film did not have flaws. It did and I will talk more about those later.

Mattia has just finished college and is about to move to Spain for job. Reality is he wants to be closer to his boyfriend. Tonight, there is a family dinner for his farewell. Mattia has told his boyfriend Eduard that he is out to his family and they are all OK with it but reality is Mattia is struggling hard to tell the truth. Every opportunity he got, something came up and he couldn't tell. Eduard decides to give him surpass on the family dinner night, so that he can meet family in person. Now begins hilarious quest on how to keep Eduard away from the family without telling him the truth. We are shown details of life of Mattia's parents, sister, brother-in-law and my favorite, the grandmother. We also meet his best friends, a drag queen and his girlfriend. The story keeps going in flashback where Mattia tells us how he has landed in the current situation. Ultimately, when he can't take it anymore, at his final dinner, he just blurts it all out and comes out to his family in a very emotional and touching speech. He thinks he will shock everyone but he is the one who is shocked when he finds that his family knew all along but just did not know how to deal with it and how to make Mattia comfortable to tell him. All ends well and Mattia finally goes to Spain with Eduard.

It is funny that sometimes, we think we know our family and that they will not understand what we are going through, but we are so wrong. Parents usually understand us much better than anyone else ever will. And this is shown beautifully towards the end of the film after Mattia comes out to his family. Like I said before, every scene of the film was fantastic, acting was exceptionally good by pretty much everyone and the production values were really high. Mattia was sooooooo cute. I wish the film had shown more of the relationship between the couple but then at the same time, I understand that their relationship was not the primary focus of the film-maker. It is supposed to be coming-of-age story and it was just that. The film focuses on all relationships. Mattoa's relationship with his girlfriend and his drag friend was very natural, warm and very believable. Usually these relations look very forced in other films but here it just felt natural. My favorite in the film was grandma. I would watch this film just for the scenes with her. She was so cool, natural and funny. I think her track was very novel, innovative and funny without making her like a demented person. The father was also funny and so was sister's small track. I fell in love with this small Italian family and wanted to be part of them.

The way film kept going back in flashbacks was also done very efficiently. It does not confuse audience because Mattia's voice over explains what's going on. I would strongly recommend this movie as a gay person. There is so much trash out there that this one comes as a pleasant surprise. What is strange is that this movie is no great shakes by any means but right from first scene I just got into it and the film did it for me. I might end up giving it a little extra rating (which I would not otherwise) but hey, what can I do. (9/10)

Started off well, this movie soon became one of those wannabe's bad bad thriller gay movies. The story is simple but then its the acting, execution and just about everything else which makes a huge huge difference.

Three friends are on a cross country road trip from LA to NYC. Johnny is the eldest of the group who does not miss any opportunity to hook up with a stranger on the road. Mikey owns the car and is dealing with a breakup. Apparently he just found out that he is positive too. The third friend is just coming out and wants to live life a little bit. When they are few hours away from the city, they decide to spend the night at a motel and Johnny drags all of them to a bar called 'Lion's Den' where he is meeting a trick from internet. Johnny gets into an argument with his friends who leave him and go back to the motel. It turns out the motel owner duo of husband-wife have some other plans. The husband likes men and the wife tortures the guys while the husband is having sex. AFter Johnny is tortured, he tries to run away but the wife kills him. They then call his other 2 friends and kills Mikey as well. The third friend is all who is left and he somehow manages to escape. Thats it!!

The so called 'thriller' scenes are so bad , childish and amateurish that I was giggling and laughing at those. I have nothing against independent and low budget cinema but common!! At least make those believable and not amateurish specially considering how much is available today in terms of technology, acting, directing etc. As if OTT Johnny wasn't enough, the husband-wife duo of Lion's den were horrible. Only saving grace was a restrained acting by Mikey. He has potential but he really needs a better director.

How I wish I could say that you should support independent cinema. Alas!! not this one.

These brainless dead "comedies" are the kind of films that sometimes makes me wonder why do I come to these film festivals. This is an excellent example of a wannabe film. Except a few laughs here and there on some dialogues, this film is a pretty bad attempt at making something illogical and ridiculously absurd. Just putting in hot men, some hot scenes and a real life full on plastic surgery commercial actress in the end will not bring the audience. But at the same time I think that many gay men have not really branched out to see all the beautiful wonderful gay films out there that the expectation they have is very low and they enjoy these mindless , so called entertainers.

Marshall and Gabriel have been together for 7 years and now their relationship is getting stale. Marshal is cocky and very physical but Gabe always pretends tp be tied and busy and has to work. He is also turning 30 and needs some thrill and something new in life. He starts looking online and finds an app called ecupid which promises to help him find true love. The app suddenly takes over his phone, his computer and in fact his whole life. Marshall tells Gabe that he's bored via a text he didn't send; a surprise hustler arrives at the door; and a party planner plans spontaneously. He is also getting a lot of attention from a new trainee at work. Things go downhill when Gabe walks out hurt by everything that Marshall is doing. Series of incidents happen back and forth where they both justify their acts. Marshall is getting attention from all hot guys but still he doesn't find them half as stimulating. End is happy as always when they realize that true love has always been there and you just have to look and work for it.

Pretty lame if you ask me. The message from the director is good that it's easy to get distracted from the love that's right in front of us, especially in an age of texts, apps and technology but the presentation is not even half as good. The acting from the lead characters is good but that chemistry is missing that you would expect form a couple of 7 years. There is enough sex appeal from all male characters. The constant phone buzzer and ecupid voice was becoming so annoying after one point that I just could not take it anymore. I think i would have liked the film if I saw it is isolation and had not much to compare to but there is so much good gay cinema out there that in comparison this film falls so behind and thats why I said this is more a wannabe film.

It depends on what cinema you like. My opinion as pretty bad of the film but I can bet, I can find you people from the same screening who absolutely loved the film and enjoyed it. Its all relative.

I have never ever seen such a long scene of sexual tension built up as it was shown in this movie. And at the same time, I have never been in a theatre with such pin drop silence because there are no scenes that evoke laughter. You are just waiting and watching as to whats going to happen next. I dunno if it is right to call this film as a thriller but there is a different thrill that you feel while watching the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

16 year old Martin finds his swimming instructor Sebastian very attractive. One day he fakes of an eye injury in the class, and Sebastian take him to the hospital. Martin has already planned in his mind a web of lies for why he cannot go back home and finally succeeds in getting an invitation from Sebastian to sleep at his house. But thing are not simple as they seem. The night seems pretty long where neither of them is able to sleep really well. Sebastian next day finds out that Martin's parents were looking for him all night. He also finds a note in his car from Martin apologizing for telling him the lies. When Sebastian confronts him, he very openly tells him that he was hoping something will happen between them that night. This infuriates Sebastian and he hits him. Things are not same. Now Sebastian is having weird feelings and he cannot even concentrate on his girlfriend. He keeps thinking of Martin. Martin meanwhile stops coming to swimming class and is spending more time with his friends. In an unfortunate accident Martin dies and this is when Sebastian has to deal with his emotions. He recalls how maybe on some occasions he might have possibly given the boy some hints and starts questioning his own feelings for the boy. Guilt struck, he is now hoping that somehow Martin will forgive him for what he did.

You have to really watch the film to closely absorb the beauty. The entire night sequence where Martin stays at Sebastian's house and events unfold is simply superb. There is so much sexual tension on the screen that as a viewer it was a completely new experience for me trying to anticipate what can happen next. Another beauty of the film is that there is no heightened drama or dialogues or anything. None of the scenes have been filmed with melodrama, however drastic they are. The subtlety of these scene make a much more stronger impact. The end is so beautiful when Sebastian follows the image of Martin in his head in the swimming club just hoping to be forgiven. Excellent acting and a fantastic direction. It is an incredible sexy drama of repressed passion, guilt and regret. The slow build of the characters is fabulous with the relationships unfolding, refolding and unfolding back again.

Strongly recommended. Whenever there is something new, I just have to lap it up

This film provides a very different take on the effects of secret desire on public office in otherwise open minded Sweden and how it also affects the relationships of the individuals involved. A bold romantic comedy that pushes boundaries on several thematic levels, this i another brilliant gay themed Swedish film after Patrick 1,5 a few years ago.

David Holst has just lost the election he was slated to win. His good looks, political savvy, and humor made him the front-runner for the Prime Minister of Sweden, but his lead has suddenly taken a downfall. It is during this time of disappointment that he meets Martin in an elevator and falls head over heels in love. Despite his marriage to his closest co-worker, Fia, and his professed heterosexuality, David pursues a relationship with Martin only to find out that Martin is the Secretary of State for the political party that beat him in the recent election. He is very confused on what to do. He tries his best but cannot control his desire to be with Martin. He just cannot control it and their very meaningful and pleasant affair stars. But can the double whammy of not only falling for a man, but also a political opponent, ever allow the two to be together. They have a falling out when David feels that Martin is cheating on him. He decides to break up and comes out to his wife. After a series of events, the two men decide to give it another shot because they both think that they fit in so well with each other but this time also some misunderstanding happens. Finally when David gives in that he will be forever lonely, when Martin comes in one final time to get back together, David refuses despite wanting him so bad saying that he cannot be selfish and just think of himself. He needs to think of his party too. But thanks to Fia, sense prevails before major damage can be done and finally the lovers reunite.

The dialogues in the film are witty and the characters behave in ways that people find very comforting. There is a maturity in the interactions that you typically don't see in American film. I loved the interactions of both t he men when they visit David's parents. The overall story is very heart warming and its comedic tone is a nice compliment. Watching lot of bad films has given me some idea on how to appreciate a good film. The film gets a little preachy when there are too many discussions around politics but the comic tone helps to keep the check. I felt at a point that it is being stretched by that did not bother me too much. The best thing is that the 2 actors were chosen based on their characters. They are not averagely attractive but that suits the character who end up developing such a refreshing bond between them which is both sexual and friendly.

Highly recommended. It had love, mature romance, comedy and drama.

I absolutely loved this film. There are more than one reasons why I did. The story is very close to my heart and it was handled so beautifully. Not once did I feel bored in the film or wanted it to end. It might not have the highest or best of the production values but it was 100 times better than the usual crap US cinema throws at us in the name of gay cinema. The story is pretty simple actually, something you have seen before quite a few times but the treatment is very different here and so many surprises thrown, it is just too good.

Openly gay Tommy, reconnects with his old classmate from college Daniel in a sports bar. Tommy always had a thing for Daniel and surprisingly one that day they end up sleeping with each other. Tommy is happy but soon Daniel announces that he is engaged to Jen and will definitely marry her. Daniel has a perfect life with perfect job, parents, career and soon to be wife. He cannot screw that up. Tommy is now head over heels in love with him. He also happens to meet Jen as they all workout in the same gym. He makes up a story forcing Daniel to join him for a weekend vacation where they spent very good time and get physical again. Tommy thinks maybe has a chance now but Daniel again mentions that there is no way he is leaving Jen. The two men meet once in a while while Tommy trying to persuade Daniel to not get married because he clearly loves Tommy more than Jen but Daniel would have none of it. They eventually end up getting married and Tommy is left heart-broken. Meetings between Daniel and Tommy decrease but Jen grows fonder of Tommy specially after she realizes that he is gay after a failed attempt to hook him up with her girlfriend. Things are moving fine. Tommy is finding hard to get Daniel out of his mind. Couple of times when Daniel meets Tommy is his aptt and tries to have sex, Tommy refuses because it is not the right thing for Jen. A few months later Jen announces that she is pregnant. This changes everything for Tommy. He realizes there is no more chance and moves on with his life. In the meantime, Daniel has totally devoted himself to work. Very close to the delivery date, Tommy meets daniel and Jen in the park with his new boyfriend and announces them that he is getting married just so that he can hurt Daniel and hurt he does because the way Daniel and Tommy look at each other tells Jen the entire story. She leaves Daniel and later reassures him to be his friend. Daniel comes out to his family which very surprisingly remain supportive. Now when he wants to go back to Tommy, he has already left. Daniel is all alone. The movie ends beautifully with Daniel spending time with his daughter alone in the park hoping to maybe find love.

Such a sweet film. The scenes just passed by my eyes all over again while writing this. Chemistry between all 3 characters was awesome. From Tommy and Daniel's reconnecting to awkward sex, to love to betrayal and getting married, everything was just perfect. Tommy showed good skills of a man who cannot get his love however hard he try. At the same time, Daniel did an excellent job as a man who wants a perfect so called normal life and even though he clearly likes Tommy, cannot do anything about it. His reaction when Tommy introduces his new boyfriend is very good. It shows that he somehow expected that Tommy will alway wait for him but people move on. SImilarly, when Jen realizes the whole truth, her reaction was just right. Not over board but something how people would react in real life. There were so many scenes that I can clearly remember even now. The subject of a gay man falling for a straight jock as been done to death but it is the screenplay and direction and the way the characters are portrayed which makes so much of a difference. The film had a right mix of comic elements as well and thank god had no stereotypes associated.

I absolutely loved it. Even though predictable at times, this film meant a lot to me. (8/10)

Jitters is a coming of age drama set in Iceland. This film is like watching a group of teenagers through a secret camera and following the happenings in their life. The incidents can be positive, tense, romantic, eye openers or whatever but it does provide a fun , positive look at today's youngsters focussing specifically on Iceland.

This is a group of trouble proned friends lead by Gabriel. On a 3 week English Immersion trip to Manchester, he shares a room with Marcus who is free spirited. He brings some character in life of Marcus and on their last day, they share a kiss. It is a short lived romance as it ends when they both come back home. They do keep sharing text messages though. Friends and family notice a change but he decides to keep a secret. We also get to know the lives of all of his friends. His best friend is having troubles with his girlfriend. He wants to score with her but she is not so easy to budge. We also have Greta, who just cant live with her mother anymore and decided to find a place for rent. She is also in search of her father and finally fins the man who could possibly be her father. She just wants to finish this so that she can move on. We also have Stella who likes Gabriel and who lives with her over protective grandmother who doesn't allow to let Stella live the life she wants to. She is always interfering. In between the lives of all of these friends, Gabriel is trying to find his own identity. When he and Marcus meet again, sparks are there but no one does anything. Gabriel is upset when he sees Marcus getting physical with a girl which ends up in a fight. When his friends interfere, Marcus tells them that Gabriel is gay. The friends are finally accepting and now it is time for Gabriel to move on and decide what he wants to do with Marcus.

The excitement and traumas of a group of Icelandic teenagers as they tentatively enter young adulthood, is very effectively and brilliantly captured in this film. The entire ensemble cast is very good and very very well acted by the whole group of teenagers. I personally feel that if the focus could have been given more on Gabriel's relationship rather than focussing so much in details on the 2 girls, it would have been clear on what exact;y is going on in his head because he is always so quiet. But I guess in the process the film could also have missed out on a big chunk of audience. Overall, a pretty good job. I would have loved it even more if it was somewhat focused rather than all over the group of friends but that's just me.

The film although showing young teenage drama still is insightful and remains true in showing emotions.

I dunno why but I have always liked well made films on dysfunctional families. This one falls in the same category. And when the film mixes comedy and religion which makes people sit up and take notice, laugh and think at the same time, the director and the writer's job is well done. The film was house full for the only screening in the LGBT film festival and it was very good to see a good mix of men and women to enjoy this thoughtful, hilarious and poignant comedy.

Eileen is a god fearing woman who is all about Church and being catholic. She has devoted her life to this. This effort is noticed by the parish and she is nominated for the 'Catholic woman of the year' award which suddenly becomes very important to her. All the work she has done so far definitely vouches for her being the right winner but she faces a hurdle when its the time for interviewing he family with the bishop. She is now finding out that her perfect daughter Shannon is lesbian, is 5 months pregnant and is about to marry her life partner Angela. At the same time her son, Frank Jr. is planning to leave is wife because finally for once he has found his true love in another woman. Her husband is also a recovering alcoholic who takes side of his kids but with the controlling nature of Eileen cannot say much. There are some finely times comic scenes when Eileen tries to balance all this. She hesitantly attends her daughter's wedding. She is even helping Shannon and Angela with house chores because Shannon pregnancy is delicate. There are serious moments also, when she goes a little overboard in her controlling nature, forcing her husband to leave her and take a temporary break, her son wants to have nothing to do with her and Shannon loses her baby thereby despising her mother even more. Finally Eileen realizes that it is not the award that is important to her, it is her family and the happiness of the family. And at this time, her family comes to support her full time when the awards are to be announced which she rightfully deservingly wins.

Kathleen Turner playing EIleen does a fantastic job playing her part. She shows excellent expressions and acting abilities as a woman trying to balance her religion and her family. She is hysterical in some scenes. Some of the dialogues are out-wittingly funny like 'I am not supposed to think. I am catholic'. The side story of Shannon and Angela has also been done very well. I am glad that the y showed at least Angela's parents are fully supportive of the relationship. I was a little confused by the whole equation that husband and wife shared but after a while, I was like yeah whatever, I don't care because I am enjoying this film a lot.

Strongly recommended. It will be wrong to classify this film strictly as queer cinema but the festival did give me an opportunity to watch some good cinema. (7/10)

We have all gone through the teacher crush phase in our life. It is a sweet memory that we cherish when we grow up and just laugh in a silly way about it. But when the crush becomes borderline obsession, this is when an interesting story starts to build up. The theme of the movie sounded interesting and I decided to go and watch this film in the ongoing Philadelphia LGBT film festival.

Juliette is a 12 year old young teenage tomboyish girl. She has huge crush on her French grammar teacher Hélène Solenska. Actually most of the class has that. Hélène might be old but she has amazing dress sense. She is witty, humorous, popular and takes pleasure in giving lessons in life and love to the class specially to the boys. Since the boys get all her attention, this makes Juliette a little bit jealous. What particularly bothers Juliette is the special attention that Adrien gets in the class. He is the most good looking boy n the class and gets most attention from Hélène. Now Juliette starts becoming obsessive. She finds where Hélène lives and goes to her house only to find that Adrien is there. She hides there to see what is going on. She becomes so obsessive that every time she sees Hélène with Adrien she bursts with jealousy. One day she cannot control, accuses Hélène of sleeping with Adrien and just rushed out of the school. She comes back home knowing very well that she has done a huge mistake. She is suspended from the school for a few days and when she goes back, she has a very hard time. Everyone gives her the strangest looks, no one talks to her. Hélène's equation with the class is now completely changed. She no more gives private classes to Adrien who according to her has huge potential but needs some push. When the results are finally out, Adrien finally fails and even Juliette scores pretty low despite being one of the brightest students of the class. This angers Adrien and he attacks Juliette. She cant take it anymore and goes home and eats a lot of sleeping pills. Hélène reaches in time and saves her. At home, Juliette's brother finds a box which reveals how Juliette had a huge crush on Hélène. Hélène, in the hospital, talks to Juliette and tells her own experience of how she had a crush on a teacher and how it is normal but teachers only respond to those who satisfy their ego and reassures them that they are doing their job right. Juliette finally gets sense and is now over her crush and ready to begin life new.

The film had a very interesting plot and a very believable performance by Juliette. She very nicely portrays the emotions of having a crush on the teacher, her passion and also the angst and the pain when she is completely boycotted by pretty much the entire school. It is interesting to see how this also changes the equation within the family because her elder brother now gets crap in school because of her. The first half of the film although was very very slow. There are long scenes of just watching Juliette's mundane activities at home and trying to be a girl and not tomboy. These scenes though necessary to explain her mentality, just test your patience with no dialogues for a long intervals. I liked the film but it could have been much better in my opinion but at the same time this is why I like the french cinema because they are simple, very slice of life kind of stories which don't make you feel as if you are watching a movie but someone next door.

Beautifully shot with bravura performances, this film is easily a one time watch

I just came back from the opening night of Philly LGBT film festival and saw this film. It is very hard to say at this moment whether this film was the right film to open the festival or not because unless I watch some of the other films, it will be very hard to compare. But still it was a decent effort. The story line is definitely very novel and I must admit, I could not have thought of it but not every story turns out well on screen. This film also defied some general logic but more on that later.

Zack is a 30 something failed film-maker. He was a wonder film maker in his college days but Hollywood glamor and partying brought him from fame to dust and now he makes wedding videos. On his best friend's insistence, he returns to his college to judge a film festival for short films made by students to choose the winner for the scholarship. The first night he meets a guy in a bar and ends up sleeping with him. He is shocked when he sees the same guy turn up for his interview on the short film 'Judas Kiss' that he has made. The guy is Danny and his background is absolutely same as Zack. WIth turn in events, it turns out that Danny is no one but his own younger self. Zack is facing his past. And it was Zack originally named Danny who made the film 'Judas Kiss' and won the best film-maker award. With the help of his old college teacher, he finds out that somehow he has been given a chance to maybe change his past, rectify some of the mistakes and in the process change his future. Danny is very confident of winning the scholarship because his film is talk of the campus. Danny catches fancy of Shane who just likes to use the budding film makers. Then there is Chris who has a huge crush on Danny since they met but Danny wants to be with Shane because he is the one who can solve his immediate monetary needs. Zack explains his younger self hard to see the reality otherwise he will end of being an utter failure like him both in professional and in personal life. Zack reveals the truth that Danny will be disqualified from the competition since he broke the rules thereby changing what happened in the past and also helps him realize why Chris is the right person for him and not Shane. Cutto today, things are all good and Shane's future now seems to be treading on the right path.

The theme of time travel has not really been tackled before in gay cinema so that way it was refreshing to watch something new but many a incidents just defy logic. 2 entities of the same body cannot be in the same time zone but I am sue director was not looking for a scientific justification. It was an idea which he turned into a film. The first half of the film was kinda suspenseful where the viewer is tying to figure out what is the actual relationship between Zack and Danny and when the truth is revealed, it is a little (just a little) hard to digest but don't we all love escapist cinema? Zack was very good in his role. You could feel the struggle and questions that were going inside him for everything that was happening around him. Surprisingly, I did not like the actor playing role of Danny initially. He seemed cocky (but in retrospect, that is what he was supposed to be) but he grew on me over a period of time. Amongst the supporting cast Chris was a feast on the eyes. His innocent looks fit the character. Shane was OTT according to me. The production values were pretty good for a gay film and it did not look like a rushed job. Since it is pretty much filmed in a campus, there are not many scenic locations.

Interesting plot (though not translated to the best potential), convincing acting and the fact that this is the first of the many films I am going to watch in next few days made this a decent watch for me. It was just OK. (6/10)

When i first started watching the movie, I had high hopes with the movie. First time director with sensible actors like Manoj Bajpai, Sonali Kulkarni, Suhasini Mulay, Seema Biswas: how could this movie go wrong? A wife who is abused by her husband commits suicide but before that she curses the durga maa that unless she makes someone a god husband, even she wont be able to rest to peace. Because of this the husband offers a girl(Sonali Kulkarni) to the temple. Here is where the whole problem starts. Firts thing is that its difficult to understand whether Sonali is being tried to portray as someone mad, childlike or possessed. What was the director actually trying to portray by her character. All throughout the movie she had this look on her face where she seemed like mentally unstable. Thankfully to balance it out, we had Manoj Bajpai giving a convincing performance of 'pagla', his character name. You knew exactly what his state of mind is. The film goes on from village to city where people try to make money from the fact that Bhagvati is possessed by devi maa.

The story is very confusing. Now what should I say about music. One would have expected some soothing may be devotional music in this film but Anu Malik comes up with most of the bizarre songs. he lyrics are awful, orchestration is all modern and don't even ask about the picturization. Like typical Hindi movies, all of a sudden you have extras come behind main leads and dancing like crazy in gaudy clothes to some really bad music.

So don't get swayed by the title, even if you love watching offbeat films (Beleive me i like different movies and loved movies like morning raaga, mitr etc but I wont suggest this to anyone). Only if Makrand Deshpande knew better what he was making and Sonali Kulkarni didn't blindly have faith in her director boyfriend, we could have had a better product with the same story idea.