Little Boy Blue

We were still talking about this three days after seeing it. So many questions are left unanswered that it is easy to see why studio executives chickened out and didn't hype this as a major theatrical release: they probably decided that Little Boy Blue it is too challenging to the "lowest common denominator" mindset which THEY have created among American movie-goers.

One wonders if Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds would have been released by an American studio nowadays; we think probably not -- some idiot would think that American audiences wouldn't understand, appreciate or care to see a movie which leaves ANY questions unanswered at the end, let alone one which leaves open as many questions as does Little Boy Blue.

Bah! Make a challenging movie and the audience will rise to meet the challenge. Little Boy Blue surely ranks among the most intellectually challenging movies of all time; decades from now film students will probably be writing dissertations about the cryptic symbolism of the book kept in the clothesline pole or the name of Jimmy's dog! This is not to suggest that the movie is an all-time great, but it certainly works on many more levels than that of Ryan Phillippe humping someone in the station wagon.

A Ryan Phillippe movie which forces the viewer to think! No wonder he found it so challenging: directors have had him playing blond pretty boys for so long that he probably had a difficult time portraying a character who is as savvy and insightful as he himself is in real life.