17 August 2008

Movie: Rock Haven (2007)

I’ve been on a spree, renting some gay themed films from Nextflix over the last few weeks. Mostly okay coming out stories and few that star Matthew Montgomery, an actor I work with on our web series Star Trek: Odyssey.

One of the last ones was Rock Haven, and illustrates what can go wrong when a writer/director David Lewis puts its heart in the right place, only to bring it off in an unsatisfying way, with way too little dialogue and endless views of the Pacific ocean and the wild flowers that cover its coastline.

The story is a bout 18 year-old Brady (Sean Hoagland), who lives with his mother in the seas-side town of Rock Haven. Both are strongly religious and Brady is quickly preparing himself for Bible College in the fall. That is until he meets Clifford (Owen Alabado), a 19 year-old kid living with his very liberal mother.

There is an immediate chemistry between the two, though Brady is so terrified of Clifford, he tries to go out of his way not to see him.

While Clifford is openly gay, we do -later in the film - get a sense that Brady was aware of his growing attraction to men, which explains his jitteriness. The rest of the story is fairly predictable, but the film is well paced and the great chemistry between Hoagland and Alabado is ultimately what makes the movie watch able. The rest of the acting, well, its okay but never rises above a standard cable TV movie.

Plus, I don’t know what possessed the director Lewis to cast himself as priest/reverend/pastor of Rock Haven’s small Church. His performance is oddly out of place in a story about religion and homosexuality. His role as the gay understanding reverend in a small town just strikes as false.

The films message about being gay and Christian is an interesting subject, one that I think could make an even interesting movie, but Rock Haven falls flat towards its conclusion, and we are left with an unsatisfying ending and a mixed message.

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