I was rooting for this film, but ultimately found it cynical and rather unpleasant - this may be more of a reflection of the difficulty in adapting a full-length novel to the screen (even Kurosawa occasionally stumbled on this front) than anything else.
In ways FOOD OF LOVE manages to approach a certain realism - characters are lovestruck (or sexstruck) at the most inopportune of moments, and accordingly don't behave logically, and the cynicism and opportunism of all definitely reflects the real world (and certain segments of gay culture), though the film's handling of this is quite clumsy. I would confess a certain bias going in - I've never been a fan of David Leavitt's fiction, finding it stuffy and insular, offering only the narrowest and most unimaginatively upscale and well-scrubbed vision of the gay world, and in this FOOD OF LOVE succeeds, but only in producing a soulless, good-looking film that offers nothing of substance.
Not nearly as bad as certain dreadful gay dramas (THE FLUFFER, CIRCUIT), but nowhere near the heights hit by BEAUTIFUL THING, WILD REEDS, or EAST PALACE WEST PALACE - FOOD OF LOVE was quite a disappointment.
In ways FOOD OF LOVE manages to approach a certain realism - characters are lovestruck (or sexstruck) at the most inopportune of moments, and accordingly don't behave logically, and the cynicism and opportunism of all definitely reflects the real world (and certain segments of gay culture), though the film's handling of this is quite clumsy. I would confess a certain bias going in - I've never been a fan of David Leavitt's fiction, finding it stuffy and insular, offering only the narrowest and most unimaginatively upscale and well-scrubbed vision of the gay world, and in this FOOD OF LOVE succeeds, but only in producing a soulless, good-looking film that offers nothing of substance.
Not nearly as bad as certain dreadful gay dramas (THE FLUFFER, CIRCUIT), but nowhere near the heights hit by BEAUTIFUL THING, WILD REEDS, or EAST PALACE WEST PALACE - FOOD OF LOVE was quite a disappointment.