OK I was going to give this movie four stars but as it was beautifully photographed, with some exceptional art direction and amazing visual detail created by the set decorator and costume designer, I upped my rating to five.
This is a bit of a glimpse into my own early childhood. Not quite the same way as described in the movie but the same scenario took similar forms in New Zealand in the fifties and early sixties.
Although the film is hinted as being a gay love story, it is more a secret and lies drama with the action played out, not in some North England town, but on a farm out in the sticks of rural New Zealand.
OK, this all sounds like everything is great and we are in for two emotional hours of pretty good film making. Things started to fall down during the (unnecessary) prologue with some bad post sync dialogue. This slightly stilled dialogue continued throughout a lot of the movie. The script was great but listening to the dialogue made me feel quite uncomfortable. This wasn't helped by the music score which was recorded so loud as to drown out a lot of what I was trying to hear.
The wonderful period costumes and props were marred by some of the worst movie makeup on a non-vampire movie I have ever seen. Almost every cast member looked like they had escaped from 'Spookers'.
The director decided to film every scene involving the actors from every angle possible. The editing room didn't help by trying to edit in every angle too. This was not an action movie and looking at a person's head from every angle starts to make you physically sick.
Some of the scenes could have been trimmed a tad - especially where the camera seemed to focus a bit too long on minor characters who were really not that important in keeping the story going.
This all sounds rather hash but I think this movie would have benefited from some public screenings, for feedback purposes, before hitting the circuit.
