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"Dear Pillow" is an offbeat three-hander that, like its characters, uses explicit sex talk as a screen for the longing to connect. A Slamdance entry this year, the low-budget feature debut of Austin, Texas-based writer-director Bryan Poyser is a subtle deconstruction of porn and voyeurism that deserves continued festival and cinematheque attention.
Rusty Kelley plays the central character, 17-year-old Wes, a frustrated virgin living with his divorced father (Cory Criswell), with whom he has nothing in common. Dad's stash of S&M magazines deeply disturbs Wes, but he has no qualms about using a police scanner to eavesdrop on his neighbors' telephone conversations.
Wes responds to the friendly overtures of "old homo" Dusty (Gary Chason) after discovering that he writes women's sex-fantasy letters for the magazine Dear Pillow, and the enigmatic man becomes his writing mentor. Having discovered through his wiretapping that the building's thirtysomething manager, Lorna (Viviane Vives), calls strangers to engage in phone sex, he suggests to Dusty that they turn transcriptions of her calls into letters for Dear Pillow.
But Dusty, a former porn-film director, ups the ante, asking Lorna and Wes to perform for his camera in a film that he'll deliver to his only remaining client, a married man (John Erler) who happens to be Dusty's former lover. The project brings to the surface the characters' simmering shame and anger as Lorna turns the tables on her collaborators.
Kelley's affecting turn as the confused, vulnerable teen anchors the trio, while Chason and Vives up the material's psychological edge with their portrayal of semitough characters caught between their loner instincts and the hunger for affection. Using no nudity but lots of bold sex talk, Poyser illuminates the masks and complications of sex, and of sex as a commodity. Cinematographer-editor Jacob Vaughan, who also produced the film, capitalizes on the Austin locale for the story's unidentified working-class neighborhood, a grid pulsing with bad connections under the flat sunlight.
"Dear Pillow" is an offbeat three-hander that, like its characters, uses explicit sex talk as a screen for the longing to connect. A Slamdance entry this year, the low-budget feature debut of Austin, Texas-based writer-director Bryan Poyser is a subtle deconstruction of porn and voyeurism that deserves continued festival and cinematheque attention.
Rusty Kelley plays the central character, 17-year-old Wes, a frustrated virgin living with his divorced father (Cory Criswell), with whom he has nothing in common. Dad's stash of S&M magazines deeply disturbs Wes, but he has no qualms about using a police scanner to eavesdrop on his neighbors' telephone conversations.
Wes responds to the friendly overtures of "old homo" Dusty (Gary Chason) after discovering that he writes women's sex-fantasy letters for the magazine Dear Pillow, and the enigmatic man becomes his writing mentor. Having discovered through his wiretapping that the building's thirtysomething manager, Lorna (Viviane Vives), calls strangers to engage in phone sex, he suggests to Dusty that they turn transcriptions of her calls into letters for Dear Pillow.
But Dusty, a former porn-film director, ups the ante, asking Lorna and Wes to perform for his camera in a film that he'll deliver to his only remaining client, a married man (John Erler) who happens to be Dusty's former lover. The project brings to the surface the characters' simmering shame and anger as Lorna turns the tables on her collaborators.
Kelley's affecting turn as the confused, vulnerable teen anchors the trio, while Chason and Vives up the material's psychological edge with their portrayal of semitough characters caught between their loner instincts and the hunger for affection. Using no nudity but lots of bold sex talk, Poyser illuminates the masks and complications of sex, and of sex as a commodity. Cinematographer-editor Jacob Vaughan, who also produced the film, capitalizes on the Austin locale for the story's unidentified working-class neighborhood, a grid pulsing with bad connections under the flat sunlight.
Switchfilm
"Dear Pillow" is an offbeat three-hander that, like its characters, uses explicit sex talk as a screen for the longing to connect. A Slamdance entry this year, the low-budget feature debut of Austin, Texas-based writer-director Bryan Poyser is a subtle deconstruction of porn and voyeurism that deserves continued festival and cinematheque attention.
Rusty Kelley plays the central character, 17-year-old Wes, a frustrated virgin living with his divorced father (Cory Criswell), with whom he has nothing in common. Dad's stash of S&M magazines deeply disturbs Wes, but he has no qualms about using a police scanner to eavesdrop on his neighbors' telephone conversations.
Wes responds to the friendly overtures of "old homo" Dusty (Gary Chason) after discovering that he writes women's sex-fantasy letters for the magazine Dear Pillow, and the enigmatic man becomes his writing mentor. Having discovered through his wiretapping that the building's thirtysomething manager, Lorna (Viviane Vives), calls strangers to engage in phone sex, he suggests to Dusty that they turn transcriptions of her calls into letters for Dear Pillow.
But Dusty, a former porn-film director, ups the ante, asking Lorna and Wes to perform for his camera in a film that he'll deliver to his only remaining client, a married man (John Erler) who happens to be Dusty's former lover. The project brings to the surface the characters' simmering shame and anger as Lorna turns the tables on her collaborators.
Kelley's affecting turn as the confused, vulnerable teen anchors the trio, while Chason and Vives up the material's psychological edge with their portrayal of semitough characters caught between their loner instincts and the hunger for affection. Using no nudity but lots of bold sex talk, Poyser illuminates the masks and complications of sex, and of sex as a commodity. Cinematographer-editor Jacob Vaughan, who also produced the film, capitalizes on the Austin locale for the story's unidentified working-class neighborhood, a grid pulsing with bad connections under the flat sunlight.
"Dear Pillow" is an offbeat three-hander that, like its characters, uses explicit sex talk as a screen for the longing to connect. A Slamdance entry this year, the low-budget feature debut of Austin, Texas-based writer-director Bryan Poyser is a subtle deconstruction of porn and voyeurism that deserves continued festival and cinematheque attention.
Rusty Kelley plays the central character, 17-year-old Wes, a frustrated virgin living with his divorced father (Cory Criswell), with whom he has nothing in common. Dad's stash of S&M magazines deeply disturbs Wes, but he has no qualms about using a police scanner to eavesdrop on his neighbors' telephone conversations.
Wes responds to the friendly overtures of "old homo" Dusty (Gary Chason) after discovering that he writes women's sex-fantasy letters for the magazine Dear Pillow, and the enigmatic man becomes his writing mentor. Having discovered through his wiretapping that the building's thirtysomething manager, Lorna (Viviane Vives), calls strangers to engage in phone sex, he suggests to Dusty that they turn transcriptions of her calls into letters for Dear Pillow.
But Dusty, a former porn-film director, ups the ante, asking Lorna and Wes to perform for his camera in a film that he'll deliver to his only remaining client, a married man (John Erler) who happens to be Dusty's former lover. The project brings to the surface the characters' simmering shame and anger as Lorna turns the tables on her collaborators.
Kelley's affecting turn as the confused, vulnerable teen anchors the trio, while Chason and Vives up the material's psychological edge with their portrayal of semitough characters caught between their loner instincts and the hunger for affection. Using no nudity but lots of bold sex talk, Poyser illuminates the masks and complications of sex, and of sex as a commodity. Cinematographer-editor Jacob Vaughan, who also produced the film, capitalizes on the Austin locale for the story's unidentified working-class neighborhood, a grid pulsing with bad connections under the flat sunlight.
- 4/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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