5/10
It's not Oscar worthy, but it isn't THAT bad.
28 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
If you're looking for 90 minutes or so of mindless entertainment, you could do worse than The Curiosity of Chance. As others have mentioned, it is not original in any way. The gay stereotype as creative outsider is old. The jock as thick-headed homophobe is tired. And the supporting characters are nothing more than stock creatures from any coming-of-age, coming-out-of-the-closet story set in high school.

Set in "the 1980's", TCOC seems to repel some viewers because they do not understand the setting (an American high school in Flemish-speaking Belgium). While this is not explained anywhere in the film, there are a lot of clues. The houses are not typically suburban America, the license plates are clearly foreign, the big sport is soccer, people have accents, etc. I'm not clear why the writer/director did not make this clear, as it might have added some interest. Instead, it seems like he tried to keep it country-neutral, as in, this could have been anywhere. But that simply leaves a viewer scratching his head wondering why all these "American" high school kids and their teachers speak English with a Flemish accent.

Set that aside. Just pretend that you know that this is set in Europe, in an American-style, English-immersion high school. Ex pats send their kids there, so there are some Americans. Then you can enjoy the flick.

Think part Edge of Seventeen, Get Real, Rock Haven, and Grande École mushed together. There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.
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