Uncle David (2010) User Reviews

Could've been better

[iandy-97214 · 3/10 · 16 November 2018]

I had to look it up on Wikipedia because the audio quality is so bad I can't make out what the characters were saying, sure it's a dark comedy and the storyline was quite amazing according Wikipedia and the conversation they had when the nephew was in the bathtub was somehow interesting. But Jesus, the audio quality, and the set design. Wiki said that the nephew's body was washed off shore, but come on, you can at film something about tides coming up and washing the body away. I didn't even got that until I got on Wikipedia.

Unremittingly tedious

[mikeymike111 · 1/10 · 28 October 2011]

Having been an avid watcher of The Divine David Presents, and having seen him perform live a number of times, I've always counted myself as one of David Hoyle's fans. His unsettling mixture of compassion, anger at the world's injustice, and a complementary willingness to laugh at cruelty made him a unique performer. But ten years' good work has been undone in an instant – though it felt like a small eternity – with this film. A stultifying 94-minutes of non-plot, non-acting, non-scripted tedium which was filmed on video over five days in a caravan park. Hoyle plays the eponymous character who has sex with his hunky young nephew Ashley (Ashley Ryder) and sometimes pimps him out to other men.

The film comprises mostly of Uncle David giving boring lectures on consumerism and heteronormativism to Ashley. There is a small break in the tedium when they dance around their caravan for a bit, and a nice 45-second interlude when the two characters charm some cows in a foggy field. But then we're back to Uncle David drivelling on for the third time about how people who go to work are drones and mortgages are bad. The film ends with its "shocking" climax, but it's shocking only in that it's dragged out for so long.

Seeing Hoyle live, he has a tremendous energy which somehow seems to evaporate when captured on cheap video. Even when he's smashing up some china figurines (daringly representing the Christian family) there's something quite soporific about his performance.

It's a good bit of marketing having Ryder as co-star though the man can barely act. Even a relatively simple line like "that blue's nice, it matches your top" – which is hardly "once more into the breach" – seems beyond him. Hoyle should have remembered the 27th Law of Showbiz: Porn stars and actors should never be confused. This is the law which explains why Ian McKellen was never asked to do World Soccer Orgy 3.

Although I thought it the most tedious film I've seen in years I'm sure others will warm to its critique of Western Society, its "transgressive" nature, and its shots of Ashley Ryder naked.

Oh, and one other thing. If, for some reason I can't fathom, you want to push up the film's IMDb star rating probably best not to give it ten stars as it looks a tad suspicious. Although I loathed the film I could imagine someone giving it a six or a seven. Possibly an eight. Maybe, God help us, a nine. But today's stats show that 7 out of 18 voters have given it the maximum rating believing that Uncle David is up there with The Passion of Joan of Arc, Bicycle Thieves, Vertigo, Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey,Rosemary's Baby,….I could go on but I'd imagine you get the point.

Pet hates

[kobe89 · 10 November 2011]

It's my pet hate on IMDb when I see the film makers reviewing their own title, and badly too. There is not one soul on the planet earth who would call this film biblical or dare to suggest that Hitchcock himself would be a fan. Only a desperate director anxiously trying to fool people into renting or buying his film would write such garbage.

I sat through the majority of this title so I could fairly comment on it. I have to say that my eyes are heavy, I feel drained and many many precious minutes of my life have disappeared without anything in return. It's an awful plot that Hitchcock would have gasped at. I think he would feel let down by the fact that modern technology has opened the steel gates into the highly respected filmmaking world and been flooded by fools looking for a quick buck.

Keep IMDb for real films and real filmmakers. Fair enough if this is your first film, but at least wait until your skills have improved before you fool people into wasting their limited time trying to understand dribble.

Good luck on new projects. Come back when it really is biblical.

One of the worst films I've ever seen.

[lylejh · 1/10 · 15 May 2011]

I've seen plenty of gay-themed movie and I am a gay man and this was absolutely one of the worst (I say "one of" to be kind but I honestly can't remember a worse movie.) Some of the dialogue is inaudible due to poor sound quality (e.g. they're talking over the sound of airplanes but the airplanes are louder.) There is very little plot and no story line to follow. No beautiful scenes. Nothing. No redeeming qualities at all. The premise of a gay man interested in his nephew might have been developed into something but it is not. The two men are just that: two men trying to make a living by making a low budget piece of crap that maybe some desperate gay film festies will use as filler. Don't even waste your time!

Horrid and immoral

[piste-cruiser · 1/10 · 31 December 2021]

Creepy, camp, effeminate uncle with about as much sex appeal as a cockroach, has incestious affair with his nephew who has learning difficulties, while persuading him to commit suicide. Probably the worst film I have ever seen.

Porn Actor & Artsy Lech

[vicstevinson · 2/10 · 14 July 2017]

There are moments when this film seems to have a story and destination, but Ashley Ryder, porn performer, was obviously cast for his physical appeal, not acting ability.

The story and film are lurid and puerile. Down-and-dirty film-making can be seriously brilliant (Tangerine) or shockingly poor and self-indulgent, as is this film.

Excellect atmosphere, but unbelievable characters and story-line.

[seahawk1902 · 1/10 · 2 December 2012]

I lived on the north coast of Kent for 10 years and spent much time bird-watching on Sheppy. Most depressing place on earth. Why must the underbelly of British society be so absolutely dreadful? This film gets Sheppy and the life perfectly.

If David and Ashley planned the taking of Ashley's life together, I find that hard to believe, since Darwin seemed to prove conclusively that survival is the strongest force in life.

But Uncle David's murderous use of drugs to kill Ashley is appalling! Even the most sadistic master could not call THAT love. OK, so Ashley is a complete passive masochist child/slave/dog. How could he possibly be so clearly ignorant? God save us gay men who have brains............from this complete waste of celluloid (or silicon).

Disturbing movie that mimics pedophile death cults reported in the USA years back

[ascendant01 · 7/10 · 27 October 2015]

I am not a fan of the actors in this movie, in fact although I have seen Hoyle before I don't really know who he is. I mention this because others have made such a point out of his appearance in this movie. I find this movie very disturbing because it sort of mimics the reported pedophile death cults that were reported in the USA back in the late 80s I believe. Several young men claimed to have been held by high ranking politicians, industry leaders and such for use in sexual slavery. They told stories of boys being purchased and stolen at young ages and raised in sexual servitude by false parents as well as run always being captured and other teens lured with promise of drugs and money. In this movie Hoyle seems to have been grooming this boy from a very young age and unless he was supposed to be retarded the boy was acting extremely immature for his obvious physical age. This made me think of those kids supposedly raised by surrogate parents or sold by drug addicted mothers to those cults I mentioned and if raised by drug addicted parents they could keep them out of school or from relationships with others their age or the opposite sex. Uncle David I do NOT believe was supposed to be his actual uncle as we see the boy farmed out to uncle Robert to be "put through his paces" early in the movie. I think the boy's mother was an addict and possibly provided the boy for money and yet still had some moral fiber left as she calls trying to find him. It's obvious the kid has been under this guys spell for some time just by watching their behavior in public. What teen boy would ever normally dress like that or act like that with an older guy in public. We also see that the boy is used quite casually for sexual purposes by 2 different "uncles" as well as extreme grooming behavior by the Hoyle character. Having said all that to explain my thoughts I also got an impression that the Hoyle character may have been a practicing Druid from his conversations so anti establishment and anti Christian. And he talks about this all being a sacrificial death for the purpose of saving the world. Now that could be wanna be Druid act or it could be a pedophile just "rotating his stock" as the Hoyle character even tells the kid. The kid may have aged out of being a useful sexual toy so they rotated him out, except I get the feeling the Hoyle character didn't really want to do it but knew he had to. As I said I think it was a disturbing movie, but I knocked off points for lack of information like the kids age and actual motives.

Flawed but interesting.

[Mogadon_Coffee_Morning · 8/10 · 24 January 2012]

If you are aware of the work of David Hoyle then you'll understand that a David Hoyle movie is probably going to be unlike most other movies. And it is.

It's not an exhilarating experience, but it's meditative, extremely funny, apocalyptic (in a personal sense) and occasionally disturbing. It's a small, intimate film, there are only two people on the screen for the majority of the running time, other people in this story hardly matter and are figures in the background. But the ideas are vast.

I loved it, but then I'm a fan of Mr.Hoyle's work and wasn't expecting a conventional film. And I didn't get one, but that's fine by me.

Spoilers follow ...

[parry_na · 7/10 · 23 December 2017]

Anything written and acted by extreme performance artist David Hoyle was going to be an acquired taste. Given what appears to be a free reign, Hoyle's eccentric 'fly on the wall' style takes a while to get used to, but is worth the initial trepidation. The trepidation being - at least in my case, watching this - you truly do not know what you are getting into.

So, what is this? A doomed love/horror story of Hoyle's Uncle David and young, softly spoken Ashley, played by pornographic actor Ashley Ryder. It seems initially that the two men meeting for a break in a static caravan by the sea is little more than a platform for Hoyle's philosophies on life, society and conformism. And then it becomes apparent that Ashley may well be dying. This appears to be treated with a calm assurance by the two, with Hoyle assuring Ashely of his 'ascension into the stratosphere'.

Among Hoyle's many profundities - some of which I whole-heartedly agree with, and others I do not (but who cares what I think??) - is the condemnation of 'control freaks' throughout society. And yet it appears that it is Uncle David who is gently persuading his young childlike 'nephew' that his imminent demise is a good, even beautiful thing; this is a powerful statement as he is orchestrating the passive Ashley into a mutually agreed suicide. Although having said that, Ashley has said that he wanted to die.

The location is beautifully used - the down-to-earth majesty of a British seaside town, with its stretching beach and horizons contrasting with the cardboard-like homeliness of the holiday home to allow for a fascinating backdrop. Whilst Ryder could be said to be underplaying his role, Hoyle is a captivating character. His viewpoints on, well, everything may be hard to hear at times, but they are never boring.

"The closer we are to oblivion, the happier we are."

disturbing and representative of displacement at many levels

[tassie18 · 9/10 · 16 September 2012]

We look to cure the ills of the third world and this film represents the dislocation of people and norms within our own society. And we do nothing about it! I found this story horrifying yet compelling to watch as their dislocation at many levels is viewed from a sometimes close and other times distant perspective. I loved the simplicity yet haunting look at these characters. innocence and hurt, caring and giving, and sacrifice. For a extremely low budget film, I thought the acting was great, especially Ashley, who and I do not know how convinced me of his innocence. All in all a disturbing film and an indictment of our society, even the manicured and fenced caravan park shows us as being outside our environment and displaced from the world.

Hitchock would have liked this movie

[barclay-james1 · 10/10 · 2 April 2010]

It's no secret that the UK film industry has needed a boost in it's arm lately, indeed it's been achingly obvious for all to see for too long now, so it's refreshing to see a movie like 'Uncle David'. Let's look closer .......

From the start we know David and Ashley are different from most couples, although at first, this is communicated more in ambiance than actual wordplay... We are allowed to suspect much, yet privy to not very much at all. We see David, pimping out young Ashley, yet we don't see Ashley complaining, in fact, we see Ashley as a conformative and willing participant, without fear or resistance. That same capitulation isn't shared by David, whom seem's aggrieved and tortured by his predicament, despite it being by his own design...

As the movie progresses, we see David musing lyrical about the right's and wrong's in life, inspired rap's that almost have you nodding in agreement... something's wrong though...something isn't clicking into place, and the tension ensue's....

Without giving the game away, you're gripped from the very start, suspecting a grotesque injustice is about to take place, and never quite knowing when. Hitchock would have liked this movie....and he'd have been right to do so.....

Biblical

[richard-caveney · 10/10 · 25 April 2010]

Best thing that I have seen in ages and I've had plenty of time. David is God Ashley is Jesus and good Friday is fast approaching. they journey through the remote isle of Sheppey having various adventures not least 'an ice-cream' how can an ice cream be a highlight? I don't know but it is. The final scene is sublime yet disturbed and leaves you awaiting more but the next scene just doesn't arrive. Will Easter Sunday arrive? I don't know but I sincerely hope so. Great soundtrack loved the Eno (who doesn't) and never knew I liked Muse ??? Art films that make films art again it's been so long. Impressed ? Yes I am. Went straight back to watch my old Pasolini collection. Died under the wheel on a beach don't you know.

A Dark Love Story of Astonishing Honesty and Beauty

[alan-51-111974 · 9/10 · 24 August 2013]

This is not a comedy, not a horror and not a thriller, let's get that out of the way.

It's a dark love story of astonishing honesty and beauty and one of the finest films I've seen in recent years.

It's uncompromisingly honest in a truly refreshing way with incredibly nuanced and powerful performances by David Hoyle and Ashley Stryder.

The settings and cinematography are excellent, as is the original score and songs.

This is a film that doesn't tell you how to think or feel about it... it creates a web of emotions and possible interpretations that are perhaps more beautiful left unresolved.

Despite the story arc, my strongest impression was of the joy of simple pleasures.

I absolutely loved it.

Hoyle remains highly critical

[sandover · 6 March 2013]

of the mainstream gay culture in Britain, believing it to be "off-the-peg" and generic, and describing it as "the biggest suicide cult in history". He has also called the British scene as "materialistic-hedonistic". That is what one reads on the wikipedia page dedicated to David Hoyle. I wanted a clue for the film and the artist, so I visited the page.

The performance-artist-meets-gay-porn-actor challenge and the fact that they improvised during the film's shooting intrigued me.

The result seems like a haughty allegory where uncle David most of the time rants about social ills (he is not as interesting as he thinks he is) and condemns nephew or whatever to a higher level through death.

Mr.Hoyle takes a representative of the adult industry and by scapegoating tries to blur what separates film, performance, social commentary, social reality. The backgrounds of the participants must be taken into account. As it is, this film plays like "I, performance uncle David Hoyle, put to death the materialistic-hedonistic, generic gay Brit scene," but the effect is neither comic nor insightful.

The title also feels interchangeable. Godard would have make something like "Uncle Sam" and he would have meant America and Beckett, or something, for he truly is a fierce spirit, unlike David Hoyle who should check out a film like, say, "The Awful Truth" (1937) based almost completely on improvisation - with such brilliant results - before he tries something so perilous as basing an artistic endeavor on interaction and improvising again.