LOVESONG: So-young Kim's friendship/love story opens (and deepens and surprises)

If you're already familiar with the work of South Korean-born/Los Angeles-raised filmmaker So-yong Kim -- In Between Days, Treeless Mountain, For Ellen and now LOVESONG --  you'll probably make a bee line for her newest movie, which bears many of the hallmarks of her earlier work: life unfurling naturally with little to no melodrama, relationships that change and grow organically, and especially some fine work with and around young children. All these are here, plus something else: Lovesong marks Kim's most accessible and nearly-mainstream movie thus far.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, here tackles the tale of two young women, longtime friends -- one of them (Riley Keough) married to a rather unavailable man and mother to a young daughter, the other (Jena Malone) still seemingly sewing her wild oats -- who are so very close that during a long weekend suddenly spent together take that friendship to another level. If this sounds anything like your usual lesbian rom-com-drama, it both is and isn't, for Kim spends much less time on the sex and/or lovemaking than on the feelings these two young women have for each other, as well as on the relationship that has built up between them over the years.

The two have a special place in each other's mind and heart, and Ms Keough (at left on poster, top and above) and Ms Malone (at right on poster, top, and above) bring all this to fine life, with the help of Ms Kim's screenplay (co-written with Bradley Rust Gray), which never over-explicates but allows us to see this relationship via its small moments of closeness -- and distance. When Malone's character flirts with a rodeo cowboy during the road trip, we see Keough's jealousy quietly surface.

Along on that trip is Keough's and her husband's (whom we see only via conversations on the computer) three-year-old daughter, played to near-perfection (as has been true with the various children in all of Kim's movies) by a delightful newcomer Jessie Ok Gray (above. right).

That early trip ends suddenly, and then it's several years later, as Malone is about to be married, and Keough and her daughter (now played by, I am guessing, Gray's older sister, Sky OK Gray, who is also as natural and believable as can be) arrive to join the wedding party. The filmmaker allows her child actors to simply behave and then captures their behavior extremely well.

The passing years seem to have only deepened the feelings of the two women, yet that wedding proceeds as planned, if in fits and starts. Lovesong actually grows and deepens as it moves along, even though the relationship between the two women is so halting and unsure. It's there and it's strong, despite all else.

Is it societal control that is forcing the Malone character toward heterosexuality over homosexuality? Clearly, she does have an attraction toward the opposite sex, yet that shown to her female friend seems strongest of all. Ever the character's mother (the usual nice job from Rosanna Arquette) questions her daughter's choice here, and what the poor groom (smartly and charmingly profiled by Ryan Eggold, below with Ms Malone), knows about all this is also unclear.

Ms Kim refuses to tie up loose ends (or almost any ends) yet this does not, finally, matter much. So well and so strongly has she captured the central relationship, despite much that we in the audience still do not know, that the movie manages to be both deeply sad and deeply joyful, as our two characters move on with their respective lives.

Lovesong is a most unusual film, but it's one that perceptive, demanding audiences should find worthwhile.

The movie -- from Strand Releasing and running just 84 minutes -- opens tomorrow, Friday, February 17, in New York City at the City Cinemas' Village East and in Los Angeles on March 3 at AMC's Sundance Sunset Cinema and Laemmle's Playhouse 7. To view all currently scheduled playdates and theaters in some 15 cities across the country, click here and then click on Screenings on the task bar midway down your screen.

BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING: Joseph Graham's lovely tale of a night of need and longing

"This is one of the best gay movies I've ever seen," my spouse declared, wide-eyed and, I think, hugely surprised by his own reaction, as the end credits of BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING began to roll. TrustMovies agrees with that assessment. Even though he's seen a lot more GLBT films than has his spouse, this new film from writer/director Joseph Graham -- very sexual and very hot, but also thoughtful and moving, utterly specific and absolutely genuine -- looks into the lives of six young men and one older one in late-night Philadelphia and finds a ton of need and longing, as well as a symphony of love, sex and art (the last both visual and verbal).

This is quite an accomplishment and it makes the movie one of the few gay films I've seen in the past several years that rises above its genre to become a movie about gays that I think could reach a much wider audience. This is due to its fine specificity and how it deals with feelings -- of loss and need, of identity and meaning -- with which so many of us struggle.

The struggle in this film is beautifully rendered by its accomplished cast, only one of whom I've seen previously but all of whom I shall remember. And not simply because of their physical beauty, which is on full display, but due more to how they bring their struggle to angry, sad, sometimes amusing, and alternately appealing and appalling life.

The acting here is sometimes almost shockingly naked -- and not simply for lack of clothing. You really feel for these guys. Chief among them is a young man named Brian (a splendid Brian Sheppard, above), still aching from a breakup with his best friend and deepest lover, Dan (Grant Lancaster).  The need in this young man is so strong and ferocious that it takes him to extremes both sexual and emotional.

Likewise the somewhat "kept" boy named Jim (Zach Ryan, above), involved with a famous artist (played by the visual knockout Colman Domingo, below) who seems to care about his "trophy" but also may be using the more-than-compliant young man for mere (but also pretty damned good) sex.

Into this mix arrives Bob (John Lescault, below, right), a wealthy older man who cruises the area in his limo, looking for his own kind of satisfaction. Add to the group a fellow named Chris (David Melissaratos), whom Brian picks up at a local bar, and who is deeply insecure about his sexual orientation, and a sexy, out-of-the-blue guy on a bike (Matthew Rios), with a more than minor interest in our Brian.

The small-time dance these guys engage in -- haltingly or with an indiscriminate push -- and their several connections, meaningful or minor, are so full of life, emotion and truth that by the end of the night, we feel we've experienced something major and surprisingly rich. Mr. Graham knows how to engulf us in both the sensual and the intellectual, and his cast member manages to seem real and genuine at both these tasks, and at each and every moment.  Even the poetry that Brian is finally able to write makes something artful and beautiful out of his longing and need.

From Ariztical Entertainment and running 97 minutes, Beautiful Something opens theatrically in New York City at the Cinema Village and in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema this Friday, May 6, in advance of its digital and cable VOD release on Tuesday, May 17. 

Julián Hernández is back with a new, nettlesome gay art film in tow, I AM HAPPINESS ON EARTH

Yes, Julián Hernández, the Mexican filmmaker who gave us A Thousand Clouds of Peace, Broken Sky and Raging Sun, Raging Sky has returned with a new film that should prove to most audiences every bit as illuminating/ obfuscating as his earlier work. I AM HAPPINESS ON EARTH is another long (two hours, two minutes) observation of and meditation on gay life, as filtered through the lens, heart and mind of its protagonist, who, this time, is himself a filmmaker. If this makes the movie more personal than usual for Señor Hernández (shown at left, below, with a couple of his cast members), no matter. It is still, as are all his films, concerned with gay life and attraction, sex and longing, meetings and partings. This time, however, the filmmaker seems to be moving a bit toward bi- or maybe pan-sexuality.

I Am Happiness on Earth (IAHOE from here on in) opens with a dancer and a film director who is checking him out. Both are beautiful, and the dancer (below) is lithe and exquisite, as well. An assignation occurs, but when a further date never materializes, our young dancer calls a halt and instead goes off with a couple of his girlfriends, who entice him into a threeway.

That's maybe the first half hour or 45 minutes. Then we cut to a graffiti-laden bathroom in which another man (two photos below) is waking up in a bathtub (this reverberates slightly from an earlier scene). Another dreamy hunk comes into the bathroom, as, downstairs, a young woman (below) writhes on the floor. Yes, weird. But then things grow even weirder.

The men are interested in each other, maybe, and in the woman, too. Cocks and a cunt are unfurled and sex takes place, both soft and hard-core. A lot of watching goes on, for both the audience and the filmmaker. This section reminded me visually of certain movies from the 1960s, and it is different from most else I can recall seeing from this director.

Then we're back with our filmmaker and a call boy he's hired, who eventually turns into a full-time lover. We also see our initial dancer once again (who by now is semi-famous), during which the longing re-surfaces, to which no real follow-up is possible.

Hernández (at left) is a certainly a major force in Mexican gay cinema. I wouldn't miss his films, even though, being rather long and paced somewhat slowly, they occasionally put me briefly to sleep. They're dreamy and erotic, with plenty of male pulchri-tude on display (this time some female, as well -- plus a more ironic commentary on film and filmmaking). They also embrace homosexuality's outsider status, its forbidden side, its treachery and betrayal, its longing, its love of beauty and need for connection. (Sort of like heterosexuality -- minus the outsider/ forbidden status, of course.)

The filmmaker does have some odd tics: His view of dance, in particular, seems weird, as he concentrates almost exclusively on the dancer's head and chest, as though the rest of the body didn't count for much. (Film this may be, but any real appreciation of dance it ain't.) Odd stylistic touches abound: the lack, occasionally, of any sound, and the switch, now and then, from color to black-and-white.

His film also seems to move in fits and starts and clunks, although this may very well have had to do with the Vimeo streaming link I was sent and how it merged with my wireless reception. (That's the trouble with these Vimeo, DAX and other streaming links we critics receive. You can never be quite certain if what you're seeing is an artistic touch or simply not-so-hot reception.)

As for the performances, they're all presumably just what the director ordered. Each actor does what's required -- which is mostly looking beautiful and sexy and full of desire. Not a lot is asked of this cast, acting-wise, while any questions regarding motivation -- "Hey, I'm just doing what the director told me!" -- probably never come up.

By the time IAHOE's two hours have come to a close, we (and presumably our movie-maker) have taken quite a journey. He is left watching a porno tape of himself and his lover engaging in sex -- which may be more real and important for him than was the actual sex itself. And we are left with what I guess is the moral here: Hey, kids: If you want a "real" relationship, don't get involved with a filmmaker!

From Breaking Glass Pictures, the movie opens theatrically this Friday, August 15, here in New York City at the Quad Cinema and in Pasadena at Laemmle's Playhouse 7. For anyone not near those two venues, the following week -- on Tuesday August 19, the film will hit the streets on DVD and across country via VOD/Digital (from all cable providers, iTunes and Amazon Instant Video).