College student Evan is somewhat disconsolate and unhappy in his relationship with his wealthy boyfriend but he when buys an old movie camera at the yard sale of an elderly man he at least has a new toy to distract himself for a while. The man tells him that he can return later on and pick up the editing machine if he wants to start making movies. However when he returns to take him up on his offer he finds that the old man has died and the current resident is his 43 year old gay son.Peter invites the young man in and well as giving him the editing machine, he offers Evan a part time job doing gardening and cleaning the pool which he readily accepts with the proviso that he can also use the pool to swim. When he is at the house he discovers a whole treasure trove of home movies of Peter growing up with his best friend which fascinate Evan whose own childhood consisted of whole series of indifferent foster parents. He starts to edit them into a movie project for his college work, whilst at the same time he falls into a comfortable sexual relationship with Peter too.
Evan moves out of his boyfriends house and into Peter’s swapping one support system for another as he is financially, and to a lesser extent emotionally, dependent on them both. In Peter, Evan subconsciously sees the father figure that he never had, whilst on the other hand having Evan in his life helps Peter re-evaluate his own youth which he has been re-visiting in his mind since his father’s recent death.
The final movie though puts an end to all this with Evan finally realizing that by usurping other people’s histories and lives is really not the way for him to discover who he is and where his destiny lives.
This first full-length feature from Michael J Saul, a well-intentioned wee drama about this young gay man’s search for some sort of family, moves at such a laconic pace that its actually tough to keep being invested in its outcome at times. The movie’s main shortfall is that with the possible exception of Peter, there is simply no substance to want us to engage with these characters on any level. This is certainly not helped by the fact that Evan is played so blandly by a pretty ex model Harry Hains who as an actor confuses his own ability to get a grasp of things with that of the character he was playing. His performance sadly was akin to watching paint dry.
