Eden's Curve

I happened across this movie at the video store. I'd never heard of it and thought I'd give a shot. Turned out to be a good story about a guy getting a lot more out of his first semester in college than he anticipated. He's a nice guy that doesn't seem to have much direction and gets into a relationship thats great (from my point of view), but he really doesn't know what he's getting into. That's pretty much his character in a nutshell. His attitude in the opening scene is pretty much what you see throughout his experiences (and you'll want to see his experiences). I really liked this movie as I found it refreshingly different. It's set in the sixties during the war, but you really don't get the feel for that, so much, with the exception of some of the music and a story or two being told by other characters in relationship to the war. The cinematography was great. I loved the campus setting and the wooded area in which one of his professors presided.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I don't like telling too much as it destroys the experience for some. But, if you like the independent film feel you'll like this movie. If you like what Hollywood cranks out all the time then you may not like this movie. It has a small, but impacting, feel.

This film reminded me a little of, "Dreamers", with less fun and more intimacy between certain characters.

Ugh! If that camera shook anymore I would have had to stay in bed for a couple of days to recuperate. The sleek camera angles they tried to use turned out to be nothing more then a burden to my EYES!! To many, they used them to many times. My partner actually looked to check when it was made because the acting came right out of a bad 70's porn movie. Joe was supposed to be the tortured soul, he tortured me. Either the actors were way over the top-"Billy" or way under-"Ian and Peter". The end of the movie made me wonder why they even finished it in the first place. I'm sure the director was going somewhere deep with this movie but that person forgot their glasses during shooting.

Eden's Curve premiered at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on 6 April 2003. I felt fortunate to be in the audience - also with director Anne Misawa, producer Jerry Meadors and four cast members present.

The story is principally that of Peter (Sam Levine), a 17 year old studying at an all male university in Virginia in the early 1970s. Peter embarks on a fraught relationship with his room-mate Joe (Trevor Lissauer) and Joe's girlfriend Bess (Amber Taylor); but as tender love turns to jealousy and rage, Peter is forced out of his fraternity (despite the protestations of Billy, played with a delightful amorality by Bryan Carroll) and eventually into the arms of Peter's poetry tutor, Ian (Julio Perillan in a stand out performance).

The film has an ethereal quality - I kept thinking of various 4AD album covers seemingly sprung to life on the big screen. A little gem and well worth a look.

I watched this, but wish that I hadn't. If I want to see the cruel realities of life I can go by skid row or take public transport. This movie was well made, but depressing. If you are looking for something that makes your day more uplifting - then this is not for you.

This movie had so much going for it, I guess, if you saw it in a theatre. But the DVD is a challenge. The sound quality is so poor, even with my stereo surround equipment, that total scenes are inaudible, just mumbling. The blackouts between scenes are too long, making you feel that the movie has stopped. Then occasionally, you get to see a complete scene, well-lighted, and audible and you discover that the acting is quite good and the script is more than passable. It's unfair to rate this film by the lack of quality in the transfer from screen to DVD video. It's a mess...and it shouldn't be! Wait for another Gay Film Festival and hopefully someone will revive it. But if you're seeing it for the first time at home...forget it and rent "Latter Days", "The Man I Love", or "The Trip" instead.