The Beaver Trilogy (2000)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Trent Harris

Writer:

Trent Harris (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Comedy | Drama | Music

Plot:

It begins in 1979 with the chance meeting in a Salt Lake City parking lot where filmmaker Trent Harris...

Plot Keywords:

Beaver Utah | Video Camera | Drag | Song | Sexual Identity Crisis

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Groovin' Gary	...	Himself (segment "The Beaver Kid")
Sean Penn	...	Groovin' Larry (segment "Beaver Kid 2")
Crispin Glover	...	Groovin' Larry (segment "The Orkly Kid")
Stefan Arngrim	...	(segment "The Orkly Kid")
John Bluto	...	(segment "The Orkly Kid")
Ken Butler	...	Terrance (segment "The Orkly Kid")
Lila Waters	...	(segment "The Orkly Kid")
Shane McCabe	...	(segment "The Orkly Kid")
Elizabeth Daily	...	(segment "The Orkly Kid")

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Trivia:

The three short films were originally shot 16 to 21 years before their release: "The Beaver Kid" in 1979, ""Beaver Kid 2" in 1981 and "The Orkly Kid" in 1985.

Movie Connections:

Edited from The Orkly Kid (1985)

Soundtrack:

New York City Rhythm

Unintentional voyeurism

This is how i felt while watching this film. I loved it. It was hilarious. But i did feel a like i was getting sneaky view into somebody's psyche and then laughing as it got twisted around to make an interesting point. A friend put it this way:

"I feel like we broke into somebody's house and are now watching their awful home videos without their knowledge".

Another one of those fact is stranger than fiction pieces of film. "Groovin' Gary", the original "Beaver Kid", is a small town guy who turns up at a nearby TV station in the hope of getting on film - and he certainly does, though not, perhaps, as he initially expected. With high hopes of fame and significance he invites Harris to come and film a truly awful talent quest that he has organised in his home town - headlined by his own drag act "Olivia Newton-Don".

Director, Trent Harris, does a brilliant job with this slowly evolving story. Some footage of an awkward kid who wants to be someone morphs, over two subsequent reinterpretations, into the story of freedom from repressed sexual identity in small town America. Harris simultaneously critiques the attitudes of small town America, the cult of celebrity, and the exploitative practices of the film and television industry.

Both Sean Penn and Grispin Glover pull out stunner performances. a young Sean Penn is the most evocative - so closely does he follow the actual 'Gary footage', but with strong nuances given to push the sense of the interaction the way Harris wants it to go.

In the end the wide-eyed naivety the original Gary is what moved me - when contrasted against these possible interpretations of his situation.

A film not to miss. I have not seen anything else like it.

Jacob.